#Pennsylvania skill
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darkredlightyears · 2 years ago
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Played skill games after work, nice quick hits on Gem Master hell yeah
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prominentgames · 1 year ago
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Our Games | Gaming Cabinets - Skill Machine for Sale Pennsylvania
Prominent Games, the leading manufacturer of skill game cabinets in the USA, presents a captivating collection of games that redefine entertainment. Take a part in an amazing world that includes modern technologies and thrilling game play. Our skill games offer an exceptional experience that keeps players coming back for more, from Interesting Story line to Brainstorming Adventures.
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stonesandswords · 13 days ago
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my mom: yeah all my oldest wanted to do was take ballet and dance classes and get everyone to dance the night away
me at my cousin’s wedding: doing exactly that
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erieeducation · 4 months ago
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As industries rapidly advance, the future of skilled trade programs is undergoing a significant transformation. Erie Institute of Technology is at the forefront of this evolution, integrating cutting-edge technologies and modern methodologies into their curricula to prepare students for the ever-changing job market.
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batboyblog · 5 months ago
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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #26
July 5-12 2024
The IRS announced it had managed to collect $1 billion in back taxes from high-wealth tax cheats. The program focused on persons with more than $1 million in yearly income who owned more than $250,000 in unpaid taxes. Thanks to money in Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act the IRS is able to undertake more enforcement against rich tax cheats after years of Republicans cutting the agency's budget, which they hope to do again if they win power again.
The Biden administration announced a $244 million dollar investment in the federal government’s registered apprenticeship program. This marks the largest investment in the program's history with grants going out to 52 programs in 32 states. The President is focused on getting well paying blue collar opportunities to people and more people are taking part in the apprenticeship program than ever before. Republican pledge to cut it, even as employers struggle to find qualified workers.
The Department of Transportation announced the largest single project in the department's history, $11 billion dollars in grants for the The Hudson River Tunnel. Part of the $66 billion the Biden Administration has invested in our rail system the tunnel, the most complex Infrastructure project in the nation would link New York and New Jersey by rail under the Hudson. Once finished it's believed it'll impact 20% of the American economy by improving and speeding connection throughout the Northeast.
The Department of Energy announced $1.7 billion to save auto worker's jobs and convert factories to electronic vehicles. The Biden administration will used the money to save or reopen factories in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia and retool them to make electric cars. The project will save 15,000 skilled union worker jobs, and created 2,900 new high-quality jobs.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development reached a settlement with The Appraisal Foundation over racial discrimination. TAF is the organization responsible for setting standards and qualifications for real estate appraisers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics last year found that TAF was 94.7% White and 0.6% Black, making it the least racially diverse of the 800 occupations surveyed. Black and Latino home owners are far more likely to have their houses under valued than whites. Under the settlement with HUD TAF will have to take serious steps to increase diversity and remove structural barriers to diversity.
The Department of Justice disrupted an effort by the Russian government to influence public opinion through AI bots. The DoJ shut down nearly 1,000 twitter accounts that were linked to a Russian Bot farm. The bots used AI technology to not only generate tweets but also AI image faces for profile pictures. The effort seemed focused on boosting support for Russia's war against Ukraine and spread negative stories/impressions about Ukraine.
The Department of Transportation announces $1.5 billion to help local authorities buy made in America buses. 80% of the funding will go toward zero or low-emission technology, a part of the President's goal of reaching zero emissions by 2050. This is part of the $5 billion the DOT has spent over the last 3 years replacing aging buses with new cleaner technology.
President Biden with Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and Finnish President Alexander Stubb signed a new agreement on the arctic. The new trilateral agreement between the 3 NATO partners, known as the ICE Pact, will boost production of ice breaking ships, the 3 plan to build as many as 90 between them in the coming years. The alliance hopes to be a counter weight to China's current dominance in the ice breaker market and help western allies respond to Russia's aggressive push into the arctic waters.
The Department of Transportation announced $1.1 billion for greater rail safety. The program seeks to, where ever possible, eliminate rail crossings, thus removing the dangers and inconvenience to communities divided by rail lines. It will also help update and improve safety measures at rail crossings.
The Department of the Interior announced $120 million to help tribal communities prepare for climate disasters. This funding is part of half a billion dollars the Biden administration has spent to help tribes build climate resilience, which itself is part of a $50 billion dollar effort to build climate resilience across the nation. This funding will help support drought measures, wildland fire mitigation, community-driven relocation, managed retreat, protect-in-place efforts, and ocean and coastal management.
The USDA announced $100 million in additional funds to help feed low income kids over the summer. Known as "SUN Bucks" or "Summer EBT" the new Biden program grants the families of kids who qualify for free meals at school $120 dollars pre-child for groceries. This comes on top of the traditional SUN Meals program which offers school meals to qualifying children over the summer, as well as the new under President Biden SUN Meals To-Go program which is now offering delivery of meals to low-income children in rural areas. This grant is meant to help local governments build up the Infrastructure to support and distribute SUN Bucks. If fully implemented SUN Bucks could help 30 million kids, but many Republican governors have refused the funding.
USAID announced its giving $100 million to the UN World Food Program to deliver urgently needed food assistance in Gaza. This will bring the total humanitarian aid given by the US to the Palestinian people since the war started in October 2023 to $774 million, the single largest donor nation. President Biden at his press conference last night said that Israel and Hamas have agreed in principle to a ceasefire deal that will end the war and release the hostages. US negotiators are working to close the final gaps between the two sides and end the war.
The Senate confirmed Nancy Maldonado to serve as a Judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Maldonado is the 202nd federal Judge appointed by President Biden to be confirmed. She will the first Latino judge to ever serve on the 7th Circuit which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
Bonus: At the NATO summit in Washington DC President Biden joined 32 allies in the Ukraine compact. Allies from Japan to Iceland confirmed their support for Ukraine and deepening their commitments to building Ukraine's forces and keeping a free and Democratic Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. World leaders such as British Prime Minster Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, praised President Biden's experience and leadership during the NATO summit
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pennsylvaniaskills12 · 2 years ago
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Virginia Skill Games
Virginia Skill Games
Slot machines mimic skill games, but players have to interact with the game; luck is not the only factor in determining winners. Virginia has vacillated about the games’ legality over the last few years.
Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, approved State Bill 1126 on March 22. Casinos are not permitted in Virginia under this state law. But in reality, it establishes
· A commission to research the laws governing casino gaming
· a plan for how the Lottery Board will regulate gambling
· How to hold a municipal casino approval referendum in eligible cities
Danville, Bristol, and Portsmouth are suggested as qualifying cities in the state bill’s details. Voters subsequently approved these locations, and their casino facilities are now being built there.
Difference between Skill Games and Game of Chance
A chance game is different from a skill game. It’s a game where a method of randomization has a big impact on the results. Dice, spinning tops, playing cards, roulette wheels, and numbered balls taken from a container are examples of common gaming equipment. A game of chance may be seen as gambling if players wager cash or other valuables.
The outcome of a skill game, on the other hand, is mostly influenced by mental or physical aptitude rather than chance. Even though a game of chance includes elements of talent, luck typically dictates the result more so than skill. While there may be some aspects of chance in a skill game, skill plays a bigger role in determining the outcome.
Certain games of chance could demand a lot of talent. This is particularly evident when playing blackjack or another game that requires the player or players to make judgments based on knowledge they already have or incomplete information. In contrast, players can only choose how much and what they want to wager on in other games like roulette and punto banco (baccarat), where everything else is left to chance.
Because of this, these games are still viewed as chance games with minimal skill requirements. The contrast between “chance” and “skill” is crucial because whereas chance games may be limited or even banned in some nations, skill games are not.
Pennsylvania Skills
One of the slot machine and pinball machine distributors in America with the quickest rate of growth is Pennsylvania Skills. We have provided businesses all across the country with hundreds of pinball and skill game machines. As a consequence of our high-quality gaming equipment and services, such as the installation and replacement of outdated gaming equipment, we have effectively built a very devoted clientele base throughout the nation.
We are pleased to report that we have helped a lot of people expand their businesses. Our clients have given us great comments when we supplied our equipment to every type of business, including lounges, restaurants, bars, and hotels as well as petrol stations and grocery shops. If you have any inquiries about our pinball and slot machines for your residence or place of business in Virginia, kindly get in touch with us. Pennsylvania Skills is always delighted to respond to your inquiries.
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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 6 months ago
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Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 1: Welcome To A New Kind Of Tension]
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Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍
Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.
Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.
Chapter title is a lyric from: “American Idiot” by Green Day.
Word count: 5.1k
💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜
Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰
“What do you think, should we kill ourselves now or later?” Rio is spinning his Beretta M9 around on his index finger. This is not advisable. He doesn’t care.
Your hands are gripping the skeletal latticework of the transmission tower, steel hot enough to burn you; no electricity hums in the power lines suspended above your heads. Your eyes are on the horizon, golden June sunlight over fields no one has planted. Weeds are growing up through the earth, feral and defiantly useless, reclaiming their land just like the deer are, and the rabbits and the opossums and the turtles and the squirrels and the doves. The reign of humanity is over. Now you’re prey animals too. “Let’s wait.”
“For what?”
“Maybe someone will save us.”
“Ain’t nobody coming, Chips!” Rio says. “We’re a hundred feet off the ground in the middle of nowhere, motherfucking Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and we haven’t run into anyone since that Amish family back in Lightstreet, and I wouldn’t count on them driving by in their horse and buggy to pick us up.”
“We’re about sixty feet off the ground.”
“Okay, Bob the Builder, why don’t you whip up a helicopter or something to get us out of here?” Rio’s M9 has one bullet left in it, yours has three, nowhere near enough. At the bottom of the tower is a swarm of fifty-four zombies; you’ve counted them twice. There are no cute euphemisms: walkers, biters, the infected. They were once people and now they’re not. They wear the vestiges of their former lives, like how those who believe in reincarnation see meaning in birthmarks: here you were stabbed, there you were kissed by your true love. They lurch and snarl and hiss in their professional attire, college t-shirts, Vans and Jordans, septum piercings, wedding rings. They decompose in a miasma of metallic blood and spoiled meat. Parker had been the last one to the transmission tower, and they grabbed him by the legs. Now they’re chewing the gristle off his bones: disconnected ligaments that swing like strands of cobwebs, scarlet threads of muscle. “Oh shit,” Rio says, looking down. “We’ve got a smart one.”
Most zombies don’t have the fine motor skills to climb, swim, or open doors, but every once in a while—just like out of every 5,000 or 10,000 or however many ordinary humans you’ll pull the lever on the genetic slot machine and get a Picasso or a kid who can score a 1600 on the SATs—you run into an overachiever. This zombie, a teenage boy with red hair and a blue plaid shirt, is slowly scaling the tower. He’s already ten feet off the ground.
Rio aims his M9, semiautomatic, packs a punch but won’t break your arm with the recoil. “Fuck off, Ed Sheeran!” He fires and misses; the bullet grazes the boy’s shoulder. He groans dramatically and asks you in defeat: “Will you take care of that, please?”
You pull your pistol out of your holster and lean away from the tower to get a better angle, holding onto the scaffolding with one hand. You feel Rio’s large fingers close around your wrist, ready to yank you back if you slip. You click off the safety with your thumb, peer through the front sight, aim and wait until you’re sure. It’s a headshot: shards of skull ricochet off steel beams, half-rotten brains spray out in a mist. The carcass plummets to the earth.
“All this horror, all this catastrophe.” Rio’s eyes, dark like a mineshaft, drift mischievously back to you. “We could…distract each other.”
He’s not serious; this is a game you play. “No thanks.”
“You don’t want to die a virgin.”
“I do if you’re the only other person up here.”
“You deny a condemned man his final wish?”
“We’re not dying,” you insist. “What about Sophie?”
“Sophie would understand given the circumstances. She would want me to be happy.”
“What if we have sex and then immediately thereafter get rescued? You’d be a cheater. You’d be consumed by guilt. You’d never be able to take me back to your parents’ doomsday prepper cult commune in bumblefuck Oregon to wait out the apocalypse in peace.”
“You’re going to appreciate those doomsday preppers when you’re eating Chef Boyardee out of a can instead of shuffling around as a reanimated corpse.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” you muse. “So you agree we’re going to get off this tower somehow.”
Rio sighs and whistles a morose tune: what a shame. “You should have gone out with that Marine at Corpus Christi.”
You frown, repentant, wistful. There’s nothing on the horizon except fields and trees and black storm clouds of crows taking flight. “I was afraid of making a mistake.”
“And now look at you. About to die as pure as Pope Francis.”
“How did this happen?! We’re not idiots, we’re goddamn professionals!” You re-holster your M9. You’re still wearing your uniforms from when you went AWOL, stealing away from Saratoga Springs like rats from a sinking ship.
“I’ll tell you exactly how this happened. You let that loser Parker come with us even though I knew it was a bad idea—”
“I couldn’t just leave him there! He started crying!”
“And he had one job, which was to check the oil in the Humvee, and clearly he failed because…” Rio glances at his watch. “Approximately four hours ago, the engine started smoking and the whole thing died on us, so we had to get out and walk, like we’re pioneers or some shit, and then that hoard down there came out of nowhere, and the only place left to go was up. Freaking Parker. I could murder that guy.” An awkward pause. “I mean, the zombies beat me to it. But still.”
“He had two jobs. He was also carrying the extra ammo.”
“Don’t remind me.” Rio isn’t messing around with his M9 anymore. He’s contemplating it as the sun hovers just past noon, hot and shadowless. “How many bullets do you have left?”
“Two.”
“Good. Don’t use them.”
You look at him, this man you’ve known for over four years, this man you’ve traveled the world with. You’ve already gone so much farther than Oregon together. How is it possible that what was once a six hour flight is now a month-long journey that might kill you? “It’s not over yet, Rio.”
“Remember what you promised me.”
His hushed voice in the moonlit indigo of the Humvee the night you left Saratoga Springs: Don’t let me die alone. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to make it to Oregon.” Then you grin, sweltering summer air breathing over you, humid, heavy, the screeching of insects in the trees. “But if it comes to that, I’d be happy to shoot you first.”
Rio smiles as the zombies below growl and claw at the steel framework of the transmission tower. Flesh peels off their fingers until you can see the gore-stained white of their bones. “Don’t miss.”
“I rarely do.”
“Do you have any more packs of Cheddar Whales in your pockets or—?” He cuts off as he spots something in the distance. His eyes go wide, his jaw drops open. “What…what is that?!”
It’s an SUV, massive, dark blue, rumbling across the field in a dust storm of displaced earth. It’s headed straight towards you. There is someone standing up through the sunroof, short dark hair that whips wildly in the wind, binoculars. You can hear the engine revving and, faintly, Kanye West’s Gold Digger. As the SUV nears the tower, Sunroof Kid ducks inside and closes the hatch.
Rio explodes into hysterical, rapturous laughter. “Oh my God, we’re saved! We’re not going to die up here! Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you. I’m never going to jack off on Sundays again.”
The SUV, still accelerating, plows through the mob of zombies. Severed limbs go flying; bones crunch and snap. There’s a woman driving, you can see now through the slightly tinted windows. She puts the monstrous vehicle and reverse and does another pass. Zombies paw futilely at the sides of the SUV, a Chevy Tahoe, as it turns out. They smack their open, soggy palms on the windows; they gnaw and lick at the bumpers and the wheel wells. The Tahoe circles to regain speed, the engine growling, a bear, a dragon, and barrels into the remaining ambulatory zombies. The hoard is now largely incapacitated. Rio is cheering and clapping his hands.
The Tahoe’s doors open, and your rescuers appear. There are two men wielding baseball bats: one with long dark curly hair, the other tall and blonde, and there’s something wrong with his face, the left side, though you are too far away to see clearly. They move rapidly through the battlefield of felled, moaning bodies, swinging their bats and crushing skulls. There’s another blonde guy, shorter, softer, pink with sunburn, wearing plastic sunglasses and a teal polo with a popped collar. He’s spinning a golf club in his right hand. He is followed out of the Tahoe by one last blonde, spindly and swift, stalking the perimeter with a compound bow, a quiver of arrows secured to his belt. Rio is singing along to Gold Digger, drumming his fists on the steel beams.
“Now, I ain’t sayin’ you a gold digger, you got needs
You don’t want a dude to smoke, but he can’t buy weed
You go out to eat, he can’t pay, y’all can’t leave
There’s dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves…”
The driver wriggles out of the Tahoe with some difficulty; she is seven or eight months pregnant. “Stay in the car,” Madame Driver tells someone inside as she slams the door shut. She’s holding a hammer and sets about euthanizing the zombies still squirming on the ground and gnashing their cracked teeth at her.
Golf Club says: “Jace, bro, that’s so embarrassing. You’re gonna let her do that?”
Curly—or, rather, Jace—shrugs. “Exercise is good for the baby.”
All three blondes respond at once in a chorus of appalled disapproval. Interestingly, your rescuers have British accents. From within the Tahoe, someone turns off the CD player. This is wise; noise tends to attract more zombies. Madame Driver, unaffected, puts her hammer through the eye socket of a former Arby’s employee.
Jace flings back: “She likes helping! It would be sexist to tell her she’s not allowed to!”
The Scarred Man looks up at you and Rio and salutes, two fingers glanced off his forehead. You begin climbing down the scalding rungs of the transmission tower to meet them.
“Oh fuck, Aemond, you gotta deal with this,” Golf Club says. He is holding a yowling zombie at arm’s length by the straps of its overalls. It’s tiny, maybe a kindergartener. “You know I can’t kill the little kid ones.”
The Scarred Man, Aemond, turns to him. He’s wearing a maroon Harvard University t-shirt. “You have to learn how to do things yourself. I might not always be around.”
Golf Club scoffs. “As if I’d outlive you.”
“Go on. You can do it,” Aemond says. Behind him, more people are emerging from the Chevy Tahoe: Binoculars Buddy, a slight girl with shifting, watchful eyes, a blonde woman in a billowing sundress and with a burlap messenger bag slung over one shoulder.
Golf Club is still struggling. “Aw, Aemond, man, he’s got light-up sneakers!”
Jace strides over irritably. “Aegon, you’re so fucking useless…” He kicks the miniature zombie to the dirt, raises his bloodied baseball bat, and brings it down on a skull that disintegrates like an overripe Halloween pumpkin. “You’re welcome.”
“Get bit, you poodle.”
Rio hits the ground first, his boots thumping against untamed earth. Aemond sets his baseball bat aside and reaches out to offer assistance as you dangle from a white-hot steel beam. “No,” Rio tells him roughly. “Back up.”
Aemond shows his palms and complies, retreating several paces. Rio helps you down. Now you can see Aemond’s face perfectly. There’s a relatively fresh wound running down the left half of his face, the violent red of burgeoning scar tissue, clear stitches; his eye has been sutured shut. But that’s not why you’re staring at him. His other eye is a focused, hypnotic blue, his short blonde hair disheveled. He keeps touching his chin, a nervous tick. Immediately, there’s something you like about him. He gives you the impression of someone who has gotten very good at hiding how afraid he is. Aemond looks away from your gaze, thinking you’re horrified by his injury. Then, reluctantly, he comes back. There’s forbidden temptation the lines of his ravaged face, a curiosity, a hesitation.
“Thank you for saving us,” you say to your rescuers, tearing your attention from Aemond. It’s not easy. “That was really, really cool of you, and we know you didn’t have to do it. So thanks.”
“Yeah,” Rio adds. “Sorry your Tahoe is covered in guts now.”
Aemond turns to confer silently with his companions, then asks you: “Where are you headed?”
“Odessa, Oregon.”
He nods. “We’re going to California.”
“NorCal,” Jace says, holding his baseball bat across his shoulders. “Bay Area.”
“Are you two together?” Aegon asks.
“Yeah,” Rio says, misunderstanding the question.
“Not like that,” you clarify. “He has a wife and baby, that’s what’s in Oregon.”
“So you’re single,” Aegon says, grinning toothily. His fellow travelers—family? friends? classmates? a combination thereof?—grumble and roll their eyes.
“Um, I mean, yeah, technically…?”
“Aemond’s also single,” Madame Driver informs you, relishing the chaos.
“He’s single but deformed and traumatized,” Aegon says. “I am mentally uninjured.”
You chuckle awkwardly. Your eyes, by their own volition, flick back to Aemond. He peers down at the ground then up at you again, smiling, a little sheepish, a little wicked.
Aegon groans, swinging his golf club around. “Man, come on.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Aemond replies.
“No, it’s just right there, all over your fucked up face.”
Madame Driver feigns a sympathetic frown at Aegon. “How sad. Guess you won’t have anyone to give your syphilis to.”
“I don’t have syphilis,” Aegon tells you. Then, to the others: “I can’t be the only single guy! It’s pathetic!”
“I’m single,” Archery Team says brightly.
“You’re like twelve. You don’t count.”
“I’m seventeen!”
“Are you Army?” Aemond asks you and Rio.
“Navy,” Rio replies. “We were stationed at Saratoga Springs in upstate New York.”
Aemond is fascinated. “You’re deserters?”
“What are you gonna do about it, Brit Boy?” Rio says. Aemond blinks at him. Aegon cackles, drawing huge circles in the air with his golf club.
“Everyone’s deserting,” you explain diplomatically.
“They were going to evacuate the base and send everyone left into New York City,” Rio says. “Fuck that, we’d heard things, we weren’t about to go on some suicide mission. We weren’t even in a combat unit for Christ’s sake, we’re Seabees.”
“You’re what?” Aemond asks, puzzled.
“We do construction. That’s why we were still at the base. If they’re putting us on the front lines, the situation is desperate. I’m not going in the meatgrinder. I’m not gonna be like those Hitler Youth kids sent to Russia.”
Aegon is squinting behind his sunglasses, truly lost. “Huh?”
“We should go west together,” Aemond suggests. He’s attempting to sound casual.
“I thought we didn’t want to travel with strangers, Aemond,” Jace says pointedly, mocking him. “I thought they couldn’t be trusted, Aemond. I thought they might slit our throats and steal our Tahoe in the dead of night, Aemond.”
“We’re useful!” Rio bargains. “We can shoot things!”
Aegon is very confused. “I thought you did construction.”
“Everyone has to go through basic training,” Aemond tells him impatiently, watching you.
“She got the Marksmanship Medal,” Rio says, grinning, proud.
“A lot of people get that,” you demur immediately.
“We can give you guys weapons training,” Rio continues. “You seem…like you probably don’t know about guns. Like you read a lot of books.” He gestures to Aegon. “Except that one.”
Aegon snickers, unoffended, still swinging his golf club around. “I don’t read books. I read maps.”
“Okay, lets do it,” Aemond says. “We’ll stick together across the Midwest and split up before we get to the Pacific. That puts us at ten people, and there’s safety in numbers.”
“Why do you get to make all the decisions?!” Jace demands. “Who signed that fucking contract? I didn’t consent to those terms.”
“Because that’s what Criston told us the last time the phones worked,” Aegon replies smugly. “He said Aemond’s in charge. So he is. If you want to find your way to California on your own, you’re welcome to try.”
“Who’s Criston?” you ask.
“Our fake dad,” Aegon says.
“Oh, your stepdad?”
“No, our mom is still married to our dad, he just sucks.”
“He does suck,” Archery Team confirms.
Rio tells you: “Hey, Chips, you’re standing in a torso.”
“Am I?” You look down. Your boots are buried to the ankles in the rotting gore of a bare midsection with only one limp arm still attached. You step out of it and shake off the bits of decomposing organs. “Gnarly. Thanks.” You spot Parker’s backpack containing the extra ammunition, pick it up out of the dirt, and throw it over your shoulders.
“Chips?” Aemond says. “Like…chocolate chips?”
“No, like woodchips. I’m a carpenter. I mean, I was a carpenter, I guess. That’s what I did in the Navy. Some people call the carpenters Chips.”
“I was an electrician,” Rio says. “So clearly, now that all the power is down, that turned out to be a fantastic career path.” Then he formally introduces himself. “Hi everyone, I’m Rio.”
Aegon perks up. “Oh, like the Rio Grande.”
Rio pretends to be scandalized. “Wow, racist.”
“So racist,” you agree.
Aegon’s chubby pink face fills with horror. “No, wait, I didn’t…um…”
Rio laughs and taps the nametag on his chest, black letters stitched over green camouflage: Osorio.
“His first name’s Bryan,” you say. “But no one calls him that.”
“My mom calls me Bryan. Sophie calls me Bryan.”
Aemond points at his companions, one after the other. “That’s my brother Aegon and my sister Helaena. Jace and Luke are our cousins. Then Baela and Rhaena are their girlfriends. Well, Baela…she’s kind of a fiancée. But there’s no official ring yet.”
Jace says: “Unfortunately, all the jewelry stores were looted on account of the apocalypse.”
“And I’m Daeron,” Archery Team says buoyantly, waving. Then he shields his eyes as he notices something at the edge of the field. “Oh, guys…?”
There are zombies approaching with clumsy, staggering strides, only a few now, but more will follow. That’s the thing; they are in seemingly endless supply. It’s easy to get too comfortable with them, to think of them as slow and mindless, even comical, even pitiful. But they can surprise you. And it only takes one bite to become just like them.
“Time to return to the Tahoe,” Baela announces, waddling towards the driver’s seat. Rhaena climbs in the passenger’s side. The rest of you pile into the back. The SUV has nine seats; Aegon crouches on the floor without being asked to. He’s unfolding a map he pulled from the pocket of his salmon-colored shorts and laying it flat across Rio’s knees so everyone can see. Baela turns the key in the ignition and the Tahoe rumbles to life. You spot a few red gas cans under the seats. If you can’t find more when that runs out—siphoning it out of other vehicles, stumbling across a gas station that is miraculously not drained dry—you’ll be walking, biking, or skateboarding to the West Coast. Or embracing the Amish lifestyle with a horse and buggy.
“We were planning to swing by Fort Indiantown Gap,” you tell Aemond. He twists around in his seat to look at you, that absorbed crystalline blue gaze. “That’s where we were headed before our Humvee broke down. It’s a National Guard Training Center. It’s probably cleaned out like everywhere else, but if it’s not…we might be able to find some guns and ammo there.”
“Where is it?”
“An hour south of here, just outside of Harrisburg.”
Baela is watching Aemond in the rearview mirror. He gives her a nod. “How do I get there?” Baela asks you.
“South on Route 42. Did you see the signs on your way in…?”
“Yup. Got it.” Baela steers the Tahoe across the field, kicking up a vortex of parched soil. She intentionally runs down four zombies before swerving left onto a two-lane road. Then she turns up the volume on the CD player: War Pigs by Black Sabbath. “It’s a mixtape,” she informs you.
Aegon points to southcentral Pennsylvania on a map of the United States of America, highway arteries and local route veins. “We’re here,” he says, sliding around on the floor of the Tahoe as Baela drives. His index finger traces the path; it’s a precarious balance between avoiding the most heavily populated areas and still having access to the necessary trappings of civilization: supplies to scavenge, roads to follow, buildings to take shelter in. “We’ll stop by Fort Indiantown Gap and then head northwest, thread the needle between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, stay south of Detroit and Chicago, cut across Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, that top part of Utah, then go our separate ways in Nevada. Oh my God, it’s just like the Oregon Trail! Do you guys remember that game?! Fording rivers, getting dysentery, hunting bison to extinction?” He starts humming the theme song.
Jace smirks, chomping on a Twizzler. “Hope you don’t die of a snakebite or something. That’d be awful.”
Aegon ignores him and refolds the map. “Rio! Fuck, marry, kill. The last three first ladies before Biden.”
Rhaena says, exasperated: “Aegon, you have to stop asking people that. It’s inappropriate.”
“Oh, easy,” Rio replies. “I’m fucking Laura Bush.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Aegon gives him a high five.
“And then I have to marry Michelle.”
“You gotta.”
“Which means Melania gets the grape Flavor Aid.”
“It’s the only logical answer.”
“I’d fuck Melania,” Jace says.
“Of course you would, you sick, sick man,” Aegon mutters, rolling down a window and sticking his head out like a golden retriever, his sunglasses still on, his blonde hair flapping in the wind. There’s a tattoo in black ink on his forearm, you notice for the first time: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground.
~~~~~~~~~~
Fort Indiantown Gap is a ghost town like a gold seam emptied, an oil well run dry, a collapsed coal mine. There’s no central armory but instead a series of arms rooms, one for each unit. Every single scrap of lethal metal is gone: no pistols, no rifles, no grenade launchers or machine guns, no ammo, not even pocketknives, although you do find clean PT uniforms for you and Rio to change into, t-shirts and running shorts and sneakers. Clothes are surprisingly difficult to acquire now. Most stores have either been looted or overrun by zombies, and Amazon is tragically no longer delivering. You can break into houses that seem abandoned, but then you have to hope the people who lived there just so happened to be your size and also aren’t waiting inside to eat you. It’s not usually a wise gamble.
You study Aemond and his companions as you move through the base clearing buildings, you and Rio with loaded M9s in your holsters and clutching borrowed baseball bats; gunshots are best avoided if possible so as not to attract unwanted attention. Aemond and Jace take point, almost always; Aegon hovers on Aemond’s blind left side, wagging his golf club around, occasionally slapping Aemond’s shoulder to remind him he’s there. Daeron prowls at the back and on the periphery. Baela pretends she isn’t struggling to keep up. Luke and Rhaena are the lookouts. Helaena fills her burlap messenger bag with small treasures you don’t even notice her accumulating: bottles of Advil, batteries, lighters, pens, tweezers, Band-Aids, Uno cards. You encounter only three zombies, easily decommissioned. Fort Indiantown Gap must have been evacuated weeks ago. You wonder what pointless battles her soldiers died in. Everyone knows the dead have won.
What the abandoned base lacks in weaponry it makes up for in food. You find a chow hall with an untouched kitchen, a wealth of shelf-stable delicacies: chili, saltine crackers, applesauce, fruit cocktail with bright red gems of cherries, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, green beans, carrots, peas, beets, tuna fish, chicken noodle soup. You feast—a Thanksgiving, a Last Supper—then settle into the barracks next door as the sun begins to set. There are plenty of bunkbeds and a closet full of pillows and sheets. Someone always has to be up to keep watch; Daeron and Jace immediately go to sleep so they can get some rest before they are shaken awake sometime around 2 or 3 a.m. Baela says she’s going to lie down for a minute and almost immediately begins snoring. Helaena makes silent amendments in her notebook; she keeps an inventory of everything the group has, needs, or wants.
Outside, Rio and Aegon are engaged in a spirited game of Uno. Luke is sitting cross-legged on the roof of the Tahoe with his binoculars. Rhaena is beside him softly reading a book out loud: The Hunger Games. Aemond is on a wooden bench on the front porch of the barracks, watching the sun sink into the west. When he notices you, he seems pleased. “Hi.”
“Hi. I’m sorry we wasted your gas to come here.”
“No, it was a good idea. It was worth a shot. And now we have a safe place to sleep tonight.” His eye drops lower, his scarred brow crinkles in concern. “What happened to your hands?”
“My hands?” In the haze of the adrenaline, you didn’t even notice. Your palms are blistered, swollen and stinging. “Oh. It was the transmission tower. The steel beams got really hot while we were up there. I’ll be okay.”
“Let me bandage them. You don’t want to get an infection.”
“Really, I’m fine, I shouldn’t inconvenience—”
“Sit down,” Aemond insists. You take a seat on the bench while he goes to the Tahoe to fetch a black nylon bag about the size of a briefcase. Rio casts you a furtive, crafty grin. It’s nothing, you mouth back, more to convince yourself than him. Your pulse is thudding in your ears; your cheeks are warm. You haven’t felt like this since you almost agreed to go on a date with that Marine you met at Corpus Christi, where your battalion had been dispatched to build a series of new airplane hangars. Aemond returns to the bench and begins wiping down your palms with antiseptic. “Sorry if this stings.”
It does, but you’re grateful for the distraction. “It isn’t too bad.”
“You’re not from Oregon.” He’s noticed your accent.
“Kentucky,” you confess.
“You aren’t making a stop at home before traveling west?”
“Why would I want to go back there?”
Aemond looks at you uncertainly; he can’t tell if you’re joking. You like the way his voice goes quiet when it’s just the two of you. You like the way he barely shows his teeth when he talks, like he’s keeping secrets.
After a moment, as the sky begins to turn to orange and pink and lilac, you continue. “People join the Army for a paycheck and a place to sleep, free college, health insurance. People join the Marines to prove they’re the best. People join the Air Force because they want to be in the military but think they’re too smart for grunt work. And people join the Navy to get away from home. I wanted to get far, far, far away.”
Aemond smiles. “Are you far enough yet?” He doesn’t mean by miles. He means the fact that the world will never be the same. Now he’s coating your hands in a thick white ointment, cool and blissful.
“I was afraid of so many things, and now none of them matter.”
“We all have brand new things to be afraid of.” He gets a roll of gauze and begins to wrap your palms, careful to keep your fingers and thumbs unencumbered.
“Aemond?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened to your face?”
He shrugs. He’s trying not to be resentful about it; he can’t change it anyway. “We were scavenging supplies from a Home Depot. We had to board up the house and wait until things…got quieter and it was safe to travel out of Boston.” And by got quieter, he means that the initial wave passed, the zombies began to wander out of the cities and disperse, the survivors were hunkered down and not participating in gunfights or Vikings-style pillaging in the streets. “A piece of sheet metal fell on me from the top shelf. Aegon and Jace dragged me home, they thought I was dying.”
“I’m glad you weren’t. Who treated it?”
“I did.”
You can’t disguise your shock. “You…you stitched up your own face?”
He smirks, finishing the bandages on your hands. “I was in medical school before all this.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“I was an intern. So definitely not a doctor, but the closest thing to one I had access to. And I had taken some things from the hospital when everything went to hell. So I got a little mirror, and I lidocained myself very generously, and I started suturing.”
You don’t know what to say. His eye?? He stitched his eye shut?? “I mean…you did a great job.”
“I’m aware I look like Frankenstein, but I guess it’s better than not being here at all.”
“No, seriously. You look amazing, Aemond.”
He stares at you, bewildered. You realize how bizarre it must sound. You both start laughing as Aemond packs his supplies back into his medical kit. He touches his fingertips to his chin a few times—restless, meditative—then stands to return inside the barracks. “I’m…going to go check on Helaena.”
“Yeah. Cool. See ya.” You don’t watch him leave. This takes intentional effort.
Seconds pass anonymously: no time you need to be anywhere, nothing late, nothing early, no television premiers, no football games, no State Of The Unions, no time zones to do mental math over. You aren’t even sure what day it is. The earth has erased your invisible prisons. Now all that remain are the real ones: weather, terrain, disease, predators.
There is the creaking of weight on the porch steps. You warn him: “I’m not interested in your commentary.”
Rio winks as he says: “Maybe you won’t die a virgin after all.”
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infiniteglitterfall · 7 months ago
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A Chabad synagogue in Pomona, New York, burned to the ground on April 17th, along with its three Torah scrolls.
Torah scrolls are hand-written, hand-made, and kept in elaborately decorated cases or wrappings.
Many of them have long histories; my synagogue has two, I think, that were smuggled out of villages being destroyed in pogroms or in Nazi attacks. One of them is the only remaining piece of that village on earth.
Sometimes, the Torah scroll doesn't even belong to the synagogue, but is on loan from a place like the Memorial Scrolls Trust:
There's an entire Jewish holiday just for taking them out and dancing with them: Simchat Torah, "The Joy of Torah."
In fact, that was the holiday on which Hamas's invasion took place.
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So it's a particular tragedy when a Torah is destroyed.
Chabad itself has a page about what goes into making just one Torah scroll:
"An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment -- cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications -- and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete.
"An expert pious scribe carefully inks each letter with a feather quill, under the intricate calligraphic guidelines of Ktav Ashurit (Ashurite Script). The sheets of parchment are then sewn together with sinews to form one long scroll. While most Torah scrolls stand around two feet in height and weigh 20-25 pounds, some are huge and quite heavy, while others are doll-sized and lightweight."
I learned all of this on Tumblr.
Once upon time, in people's "punch Nazis" days, I would've been able to find some mention on Tumblr of this synagogue burning.
There is none, so I'm posting about it.
And I'm going to quote Daniel Weiner, Rabbi of Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Bellevue, Washington, when his own synagogue was vandalized last November:
"It’s horrific and heartbreaking.... [Taking out your feelings about] what's going on in the Middle East by defacing a sacred space of a synagogue -- that’s the very definition of antisemitism."
I'm also posting about the Kehillat Shaarei Torah Synagogue in Toronto, whose windows were broken on Friday, April 19th, by someone who also tried to break the front door down.
And the April 15 graffiti outside a Bangor, Maine synagogue that said, "Nazi Israel 30K murdered," next to a crossed-out Star of David. The same synagogue faced pro-Hamas flyers plastered around it in November.
I was going to include all the synagogues vandalized over the past six months. But there are way too many. Several every week. Lots are swastikas.
I'll go back to just doing attacks on and near synagogues.
Someone has to talk about the 1-year-old who was stabbed outside Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel (BZBI) synagogue, in Philadelphia, on April 13th.
The foiled terrorist attack on a Moscow synagogue on April 11th.
The man who, on April 9th, screamed at the rabbi at Moldova's Great Synagogue, "What are you doing here? How come no one has finished you off for everything you are doing to the Palestinians?" Just one week after people had vandalized a Holocaust memorial in nearby Soroka, and sprayed "Free Palestine" on it.
The Oldenburg, Germany synagogue that was firebombed on April 5th.
The Florida Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, which on March 16 burned, but not to the ground. The Torah scrolls were safe, and no one was hurt, but the back of the building was severely damaged.
The planned-but-thwarted-on-March-7th ISIS massacre in a Moscow synagogue.
The stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in Switzerland on March 5th. (He was badly injured, but expected to survive.)
A man leaving a synagogue in Paris was beaten on March 3rd.
People set the courtyard of a synagogue in Sfax, Tunisia on fire on February 27th. Firefighters managed to put the fire out before it consumed the inside of the building.
The synagogue is no longer used; there are no Jews left in its area, and fewer than 1,000 Jews left in Tunisia overall.
(Thousands of Tunisian Jews were sent to work camps during the Holocaust. Antisemitism across the Middle East continued to increase rapidly for decades. By the 1970s, 90% of Tunisian Jews had fled to France or Israel.)
On February 18, an Orthodox Jew leaving Synagogue of Inverrary-Chabad in Lauderhill, Florida, was beaten by an attacker yelling racial slurs.
Someone deliberately chose International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to smash all the windows in the front of Sgoolai Israel Synagogue in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick.
On December 29, Turkey arrested 32 people linked to ISIS who were planning attacks on synagogues and churches.
On December 17, a man drove a U-Haul truck up onto the sidewalk between a barrier and the front door of the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington D.C., got out, and started yelling "Gas the Jews." He also sprayed a foul-smelling substance on two people leaving the synagogue.
December 17 also saw 400 synagogues across the United States receive bomb threats.
On December 11, a man attacked an elderly couple on their way into a synagogue in Los Angeles, screaming, "Give me your earrings, Jew!!" and beating one of them bloody with a belt. (Happily, he chased the guy down the street, and caught him when his pants fell down.)
On December 10, a 16-year-old was arrested in Vienna for planning an attack on a synagogue.
On December 8, on the first night of Hanukkah, 15 synagogues in New York State received bomb threats. And someone screamed, "Free Palestine," and fired shots outside of Temple Israel in Albany, NY. Which has a preschool that was in session.
Meanwhile, the five Jews left in Egypt were canceling public Hanukkah candle-lighting at their synagogue out of fear of reprisals. Particularly after two Israelis in Alexandria had been gunned down by terrorists on October 8. (While Israel was still fighting Hamas in Israel.)
On November 15, a terrorist group set the only synagogue in Armenia on fire.
Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) has a history of working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
(PFLP is part of Hamas's network of groups. Samidoun is their nonprofit arm - which is why Germany banned Samidoun last year, although it's still active in many other countries.
PFLP is also actively supported by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a diaspora nonprofit group, and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an SJP spinoff in NYC.)
On November 11, halfway through Shabbat services, police asked Central Shul in Melbourne, Australia to evacuate "as a precaution" due to a "pro-Palestinian" protest that had chosen the neighboring park as its gathering place. Australia has seen some very outspoken antisemitism at protests, including the march shortly after October 7 that chanted "Gas the Jews."
Also on November 11, protesters targeted a synagogue along a march route. They sat in their cars, spraying green smoke and shouting at people leaving the synagogue. The march itself featured a record number of horrifying signs and chants.
On November 7th, Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal was firebombed, and the back door of the Jewish organization across the street (Federation CJA) was set on fire.
On November 4, protesters chanted "Bomb Israel," and burned an Israeli flag outside the only synagogue in Malmo, Sweden.
During October, there were 501 antisemitic acts under investigation in France in just three weeks, including groups gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats, and graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium.
On October 18, people firebombed a synagogue in Berlin after homes all over the neighborhood were graffitied with stars of David.
And also on October 18, hundreds of "pro-Palestine" rioters attacked the Or Zaruah Synagogue, in the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa, while worshippers were inside.
Based on the video, they seem to have blocked the synagogue entrance completely, while screaming "Murderous Israel" and waving Palestinian flags. (Melilla is an autonomous zone belonging to Spain. It borders Morocco.)
On October 17, during pro-Palestinian protests, hundreds of rioters set fire to Al Hammah synagogue, an abandoned house of prayer in central Tunisia. They hammered down the building’s walls and raised a Palestinian flag on the building. Police did not intervene.
The Facebook page "Tunigate", which has around 88 thousand followers, published a video of the assault. So did "Radio Bousalem”, with 83 thousand users. The vast majority of comments on these videos welcome these acts. The building was severely damaged and almost completely razed to the ground.
On October 15, bomb threats were sent to many East Coast synagogues. Attleboro synagogue Congregation Agudas-Achim received one of the emails, which read, "The bombs will blow up in a few hours. A lot of people will die. You all deserve to die."
On October 8 -- again, while Hamas was still in Israel -- Madrid’s main synagogue was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David.
And on October 7, an assailant in Rockland, NY fired a BB gun at two women entering a synagogue. Later in the month, a banner at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in the area was vandalized with the words, “Fuckin kikes."
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We need facts about YANDERE CREEPYPASTA ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AU!!! Only if you want to and take your time. I just got really excited hearing this as I love zombie movies
Something Short (Zombie AU Introduction)
Author's Note: I've had this AU idea for months, but I just never got to it.
Warnings: Murder, Torture, Sexual Harrasment, Kidnapping, Human Trafficking (Mentions), Mental Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Human Experiments, Gore, Physical Abuse, Manipulation, Dehumanization, Sadism, Being Held To Extremely High Standards, Dictatorship, And Obession
Ok, so. I picture the virus that caused the whole outbreak to be a mixture between the walking dead zombies, and the Train to Busan zombies, you know.
Now, you're pretty much one of the few who survived the outbreak. You and your two brothers are wondering around looking for a permanent place of residence. You found one society, but it was destroyed soon after you got there.
In this AU, EJ is the leader of a cannibalistic city. They live in a heavily fortified town somewhere in Pennsylvania. EJ is the doctor and leader of this colony. One day you and your brothers get kidnapped by a few of their members, and you only survived because EJ took an interest in you. Your brothers were kept alive as a way to keep you in line, but you knew they were barely surviving.
One day, your brothers escaped, leaving you behind. Once you escape, your main motivation is reuniting with your brothers, or at least find out what happened to them.
You were trapped with EJ for about 8 months, and those months were hell. Unlike my other AUs and Canon were EJ puts up a fake mask of kindness and care, Zombie AU EJ is heartless right off the bat. It's the end of the world, you either do what he tells you, or you're tonight's dinner. So, you're now labeled as his pet, even the other civilizations know about you, the poor pet of Cannubal King. You would constantly be a victim to his twisted experiments, but after each one he'd comfort you. His constant switched in personality and behavior is what makes you have a blurred perspective of him. In this AU, EJ is the one you're most terrified of, not the Proxies.
Now, the Proxies are opportunist. They are the people in the apocalypse to kill, kidnap and sell people as a way to make it buy. They're the most dangerous to look for because they're doing anything to survive. After 8 months past, you're able to escape. You end up wondering around for about 3 days before you find a little shed in the woods. When you get there, the shed is filled with a decent amount of food and water. However, as you inspect a small can, you're whacked in the head with a crow bar. When you wake up, three men are standing in front of you. They all discuss what their going to do to you before they agree to keep you. The Proxies are no stranger to keeping pets, but each one of them have died in someway, and you're just another replacement. Out of all the proxies though, Toby ends up becoming completely in love and obsessed with you, while Masky and Hoodie have a more possessive, sexual obsession with you.
Ben is the leader of a tech society. His society was able to keep electricity and tech running, making the most advanced civilization. However, getting in is extremely hard, and being a citizen there sucks. Ben is a dictator. If you hold no use to him, you're getting sent out into the heard. You disobey or betray him, sent to the Cannibal Colony. And not to mention, he had eyes and ears everywhere. Everyone in the city has to do their part if they want to stay, and if you don't, Oh well. Also, being one of Ben's favorites sucks even more. If he likes you for your skill or talent, he holds you to an impossible standard, and he enjoys to watch those people try so hard to meet it. No one is ever good enough for him, and he'll gladly torture those who can't obey. If he likes you for his sexual desires, you're running on his schedule. He expects you to do your own work, and fulfill his desires.
So, how do you two meet? You actually met back when you were with EJ. Just like in every AU, Jeff, EJ, and Ben are all really close friends, and EJ paid a visit to Ben in order to collect new Tech. There you caught Ben's eyes. Ben joked with EJ, saying that if he ever got bored of you, he'll gladly take you. He would never hide his stares, and always made his intentions with you painfully clear. He would never do anything to you physically since he likes and respects EJ to much, but he meant what he said when he told EJ that he'd take you if he didn't want you anymore.
LJ is a loner, but what he does is kinda weird. LJ stays in a abandoned fair ground. Rides and attractions are still up. Thanks to Ben, LJ is able to keep the tech working, and it often attracts wonders. LJ collects walkers and uses them for his circus shows. Anyone who stumbles upon his grounds are welcomed to stay. So, there's often people hanging out there because, 1, free food, 2, fun rides, 3, protection from walkers, and 4, entertainment. Once there's enough people, LJ holds a circus show. In this show, LJ summons a gas that drugs everyone for a short period of time. During this time, LJ takes some members of the audience, steals everyone's weapons, and ties them down to their chairs. Then, he uses the people he kidnapped for his twisted little show. Some people would be eaten by walkers, others would be forced to do extremely dangerous stunts, and the rest would just be brutally tortured. But at the end of the show, everyone in the tent would be dead. Now rinse and repeat, and that's what LJ does.
You and your brothers came across LJ's circus, but you guys left after a short while, not aware that you almost lost your lives.
Liu are kinda like mercenary. Liu gathers Intel for other groups, kidnaps people, and sells people just to get by. He's never in one place for too long, and many fall for his charm and charisma. His most consistent client is Ben, and Ben considers him a member of his city, even though Liu begs to differ.
How did you two meet? Jeff had dragged Liu to the proxies place due to the Proxies not keeping the end of a deal they made. You were watching from a top the stairwell when Liu noticed you. Liu is a hard-core sadist and doesn't really care about love or sex, violence his thing due to Sully's influence. But I can see him instantly falling for you. I feel like before Sully manifested, Liu was such a lover boy, but I can see him always being a blunt and manipulative bastard. Despite Jeff being Liu for support, Liu just stared at you as you sat ontop of the stares quietly, hoping that he would take his eyes off you.
Jeff is another wonderer. He could deadass care less about the apocalypse. He's normally by himself, in a cabin, either getting high or murdering people he comes across. He's deadass chilling.
Just like Ben, Jeff met you through EJ. Jeff doesn't really have any feelings towards you at the moment since he doesn't pay much attention to you, but that will slowly change.
QNow, last major plot idea. Since EJ is a doctor, and Ben is the tech guy, I can see the two of them looking for a cure to the virus. But, they often use random people as experiments for these. Back when you were with EJ, you were forced to witness them, and in one test, the person starting to develop sores and bumps all over their body, and it got so bad that they ended up swelling up like a balloon.
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underground-secret · 8 months ago
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The Hunter and the Witch~ Dean Winchester x F! reader
Description: When Dean gets a call from an "old friend" asking for help, old feelings resurface leaving for messy feelings and a complicated hunt.
Warnings: canon violence, feelings of unrequited love, angst, loving someone being difficult, corpses, crime scenes, cursing, mentions of racism, racist ghost truck?
Tag list: @jesllianaquilesrolonsworld , @okayiamkassandra , @fablesrose , @ada--44 , @bonkydarnes , @star-yawnznn , @crazyunsexycool
Word Count: 9,251
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Route 666
(Master list, Prev Ch, Next Chapter)
I lean against the expanse of the Impala, letting the bright sun shine over me. It was one of those cold but not cold days, where as long as the sun was hitting you it was perfectly right. Sam is next to me looking over the large map he has laid out on the hood of the car, trying to look for a way around a closed-off road.
I’m glad he knew what he was doing ‘cause my map and geography skills only went so far before I was lost.
Meanwhile, Dean was off to the side, his phone pressed to his ear his brows furrowed whoever he was talking to was clearly telling him something important and maybe shocking.
“Ok. I think I found a way we can bypass that construction just East of here,” Sam informs gaining my attention, “We might even make Pennsylvania faster than we thought.” I nod, taking advantage of his hunched-over figure to ruffle his hair, “Nice work, map man.” He snorts, rolling his eyes as he pushes my arm away playfully.
“Yeah. ‘Problem is, we’re not going to Pennsylvania” Dean points out, closing his phone and looking at it thoughtfully. I look at him confused, “We aren’t…?” He nods, wetting his lips, “I just got a call from an, uh, old friend. Her father was killed last night, think it might be our kind of thing.”
“What?” Sam vocalizes. “Yeah. Believe me, she never woulda called, never, if she didn’t need us” Dean clarifies. Without giving us any more information or even a chance to contemplate or counter his statement he gets in the car, “Come on, are you coming or not?”
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The Impala cruises down the expanse of the road, a long beautifully green field on one side and a lake on the other. “By old friend you mean…?” Sam asks the question we were both undeniably thinking. “A friend that’s not new” Dean grumbles.
“Oh! Thanks, genius” I remark, he was being weird and that alone was not helping his case. “‘Said her name’s Cassie huh?” Sam said, trying a different angle, “You never mentioned her…”
“Didn’t I?” Dean remarks. He wasn't very good at hiding this one, the car falling silent in the wake of his stupid answer. He finally huffs, “Yeah, we went out.”
“You mean you dated somebody?” Sam asks with a snort, “For more than one night?”
“Oh come on Sammy we're all adults here, we’ve all dated before” I chime in with a smirk. He turns around in his seat, facing me with an expectant look, “Are we talking about the same person here? Dean doesn't date.” Sam exclaims and I push down the ache of that implication, “And aren’t you the least bit curious.”
“Oh no, I am,” I nod enthusiastically, laughing lightly, “I want all the details. I was just tryna be nice.”
He snickers, turning back to his brother, “You heard her, we want all the details.”
I swear Dean’s eye practically twitches, “Am I speaking a language you’re not getting here? Dad and I were working a job in Ohio, she was finishing up college. We went out for a coupla weeks.” 
I want to ask how long ago this was, was it months before his dad disappeared or a year or more ago, but I hold back on my questioning. “And…?” Sam pushes. Dean shrugs slightly.
“Look, it’s terrible about her dad, but it kinda sounds like a standard car accident. I’m not seeing how it fits with what we do,” Sam reasons, “Which by the way, how does she know what we do?”
Dean doesn't answer again, silently shifting in his seat uncomfortably. The realization hits me like a brick, “Oh. My. God,” I lean forward in my seat almost getting choked out by my seatbelt, “You told her! You broke the number one hunting rule! You know, not telling anyone, ever!”
“More than that!” Sam adds, “It’s our big family rule. Number one. We do what we do and we shut up about it. For a year and a half, I did nothing but lie to Jessica, and you go out with this chick in Ohio a coupla times and you tell her everything?!” I try not to think about my own relationships both romantic and not that rarely ever made it past a couple of months before it ended, not only having to lie about being a hunter but a witch too. Dean stays silent, staring straight ahead, “Dean!” Sam yells.
“Yeah. Looks like,” he finally acknowledges. He continues to stare ahead, pressing his foot down harder on the gas pedal. Sam shakes his head, giving his brother his classic bitchface.
“Oh. He had it bad” I laugh leaning back in my seat, ignoring the sinking and stabbing feeling in my heart. I figured I’d have to keep doing so on this hunt.
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The office was dark, the bright sunlight not able to stretch upon the large room not even with the help of glass doors. The place could really open a couple of blinds, let the light shine in.
An old white man with an interesting-looking tie, one of those Western ones with the jewel and black tether, talks to two people a man and a woman their backs towards us. And the way Dean pauses, staring at the woman it isn't hard to deduce she's Cassie. She and the older black gentlemen next to her seem to be having some sort of dispute with the old white guy.
Then suddenly both of the men walk away, clearly frustrated, leaving Cassie to stand there herself. She turns around swiftly, and almost like a perfectly curated romance movie she nearly hits Dean only inches separating the two. I didn't even realize he had moved forward in the time we've been standing here. 
Just looking at her I could tell why Dean fell for her, she's beautiful more than that. She could be a model with her beautiful long dark curls framing her face, full lips colored red, and big brown eyes. She must have stepped out of a magazine, everything about her screamed perfect down to her perfectly shaped eyebrows and perfect nose. “Dean,” she says, her voice smooth despite the look of slight apprehension.
He nods and grins, “Hey Cassie.” And they just stare at each other. He's looking at her in a way I’ve never seen him look at anyone before even despite the tension that hung in the air, unspoken words from however long ago.
His eyes seem to glimmer, you’d have to be a fool not to see he still has feelings for her, that they never went away in the first place. And that it’s more than just any feelings, he loves her and that is a hard pill to swallow.
He clears his throat, breaking the trance they were both in, “This is my brother Sam. And my friend Y/N.” She smiles at each of us before her gaze reverts to Dean, not that I could blame her in the slightest.
“Sorry ‘bout your dad,” he says.
“Yeah. Me too,” she answers.
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Her family home was beautiful and extraordinarily large, it was a bit disturbing. Though maybe that was because it reminded me of my home before moving to Kansas, or at least what I remember of it. We sat in the sitting room on vintage settees, another reminder of that home–my mother would quite like the look of this cozy room. 
Cassie finally comes back adorning a tray of tea cups and a teapot along with the little bowl of sugar and a small pouring cup of milk, could she get any more perfect and wonderful? “My mothers in pretty bad shape. I’ve been staying with her. I wish she wouldn’t go off by herself. She’s been so nervous and frightened. She was worried about Dad,” she explains.
“Why?” Dean asks as she takes a seat across from us. He was watching her every move as if dedicating it to memory, I wonder if he’s thinking ‘She moves in the same manner she used to’ or maybe that it changed. Suddenly I was not so okay with sitting between the boys even though that's almost how we always sat when talking to someone on a hunt, as it made it harder for them to fight and made them slightly more comfortable with squishing into sofas with their large frames. But now, being in the middle I could easily watch how he looked at her, studied her.
She skillfully pours tea into each cup, “He was scared. He was seeing things.”
“Like what?” He asked.
“He swore he saw an awful-looking black truck following him,” she responds carefully.
“A truck, did he see a driver?” I ask, diligently accepting the beautiful teacup she handed me. I take a careful sip of the black tea, of course she would know and pick the perfect tea for guests. Does she have any flaws?
“He didn’t talk about a driver,” she answers, “Just the truck. He said it would appear and disappear. And, in the accident, Dad’s car was dented, like it had been slammed into by something big.”
Sam accepts his cup of tea, “Thanks. Now you’re sure this dent wasn’t there before?” And as predictable as Dean was he looked at his cup weirdly before depositing it back on the tray, that man was not a tea person he’d take a coffee or a beer any day. I think the only reason he drank the tea I gave him when he was sick was because he knew how desperate Sammy and I were. 
“He sold cars. Always drove a new one. There wasn’t a scratch on that thing,” she explains, “It had rained hard that night. There was mud everywhere. There was a distinct set of muddy tracks leading from Dad’s car…leading right to the edge, where he went over.” She swallows harshly, bowing her head, “One set of tracks. His.” 
Dean’s face softens, eyes filling with sympathy, “The first was a friend of your father's?” She nods, “Best friend. Clayton Soames. They owned the car dealership together. Same thing. Dent. No tracks. And the cops said exactly what they said about Dad. He ‘lost control of his car.’”
I force my brain to rid itself of any thoughts of Dean and Cassie's relationship. This was like any other hunt, something weird is going on and we are here to help, nothing more.
It was weird, cars don't just drive off the road like that and then have newly made dents that match another vehicle. “Is there any reason you can think of as to why your father and his partner might've been targets? Competition?” I ask. She shakes her head, radiating certainty, “No.”
“And you think this vanishing truck ran them off the road?” Sam points out.
“When you say it aloud like that…,” she sighs, “listen, I’m a little skeptical about this…ghost stuff…or whatever it is you guys are into.”
Dean huffs, “Skeptical. If I remember, I think you said I was nuts.” 
“That was then,” she bites back. Then they fall back into that thing where they just stare at each other, “I just know that I can’t explain what happened up there. So I called you,” she adds, directing her words only to him. I clear my throat, weary of the bubble they seem to have put around themselves, “You were right in calling” I reasoned softly, “It is very strange and on the off chance it isn’t anything supernatural then it was certainly a cover-up.”
Her perfect eyebrows furrow but before she can respond the sound of the front door opening catches all of our attention, a middle-aged white woman enters through and I assume it's her mother. She shared her mother's eye shape and her nose, but the rest of her she must have gotten from her father.
As if we had gotten caught we all rise from the sofa. Cassie goes over to her mother, taking her arm, “Mom. Where have you been I was so…” her mother cuts her off looking at us, “I had no idea you'd invited friends over.”
“Mom, this Dean, a…friend of mine from…college. ‘His brother Sam and friend Y/N.”
“Well, I won’t interrupt you” her mother smiles nervously.
“Mrs Robinson,” Dean says suddenly, “We’re sorry for your loss. We’d like to talk to you for a minute if you don’t mind.” And as if offended she recoils, “I’m really not up for that right now.”
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The morning sun is dimmer today, perfect for the scene we were walking upon. The man Cassie was standing with yesterday, Jimmy, was the newest victim. He died in the same way as the others sometime late last night. Cassie was again arguing with the old white man from yesterday. As we approached I could hear his condescending voice, “Close the man road. The only road in and out of town? Accidents do happen Cassie, and that’s what they are. Accidents.” 
We stand beside her, Dean speaking up immediately, “Did the cops check for additional denting on Jimmy’s car, see if it was pushed?” 
Without missing a beat and without looking away from Cassie the man asks, “Who’s this?”
“Dean and Sam Winchester, Y/N L/N. Family friends. This is Mayor Harold Todd” She replies smoothly. This man went from just any old white guy to a powerful old white guy, even worse. And he had two first names, you never trust someone with two first names. Reluctantly Mayor Old Guy answers Dean’s initial question, “There’s one set of tire tracks. One. ‘Doesn’t point to foul play.”
Cassie scuffs, “Mayor, the police, and town officials take their cues from you. If you’re indifferent about…” 
He cuts her off, “Indifferent!”
“Would you close the road if the victims were white?” she counters.
Oh. Could she get any more iconic?!
“You suggesting I’m racist Cassie?” He spits, “I’m the last person you should talk to like that.” 
“And why is that?” She counters, stepping closer to him.
“Why don’t you ask your mother” he answers before walking away. My jaw drops, what the hell is going on in this town?
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I huff, blowing a piece of hair out of my face. I really didn’t want to get dressed, for as much as I’ve been trying to ignore the whole Dean and Cassie situation I was feeling horrible.
I sit on the soft motel bed in nothing but my underwear and a nice white button-down, haven given up on dressing. I feel stupid. Incredibly stupid.
Maybe Sam’s words had gotten to me, maybe I had gotten my hopes up without even realizing it.
He loves someone else, and he’s had for a while. I always thought when you love someone those feelings don’t ever truly go away, there's always a part of you with them. They wind up crossing your mind and you wonder where things went wrong. But I guess I never considered this would also apply to Dean, which is cruel to believe within itself. Which is funny too, all these years I’ve spent loving him…But Sam was right he didn’t date so I guess I assumed he never fell for anyone during his countless one-night stands.
I know death is cruel but maybe love is tied with it. Because I feel like someone took my heart and ran with it, leaving me with this void in my chest and an ache so intense that it throbs in its place. It was stupid to think I had a chance to begin with. I knew not to believe I had one in the first place, but somewhere along the line I had completely forgotten about any of that. So much for listening to my past self, if I had maybe I wouldn't be feeling so damn bad.
But I couldn't be mad. Cassie was wonderful in every possible way and you don't need to know her for long to realize that. They seemed perfect for each other really. She was feisty and had no issue putting someone in their place, which I quite admired, and I know Dean could use that every now and then. If she was a jerk I’m sure I’d have no issue disliking her, but she wasn’t! She was impossible to dislike, and it would be horrible of me to hate her just because she harbors feelings for someone that I love or the fact that he loves her back. That wasn't her fault, it was neither of their faults.
Loving someone has to be the hardest thing one could do.
I get up from the bed and put on my skirt. I couldn't sit here forever, the boys would come knocking and I wouldn't have a good excuse as to why I’m in a mood. Quickly I check myself in the mirror, at least I didn’t cry which means I don't gotta redo my makeup, even if it was minimal to begin with.
How do you stop loving someone? I could use that answer.
I knew I loved him for a long time, too long. But I suppose I didn’t realize just how bad it had gotten, how much it had flourished and I had never expected that to be possible. I love him.
I love him and it hurts so much.
How many times did I have the opportunity to tell him? It had to be in the hundreds. Maybe it was better that I didn’t, he loves someone else and I should be happy for them. I am happy for him. He deserves to be loved and be able to love. Yes, I am happy.
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I approach the two older men having lunch, focusing on the wet ground and the wholesomeness that is them eating on a pier. “Hi, sorry. Are you Ron Stubbins?” I ask, taking the lead. I needed to throw myself into the work, I needed the distraction. The older man nods looking at us confused, his black cap bobbing with his head. “You were friends with Jimmy Anderson?” Dean follows up.
“Who are you?” Ron responds with, sitting up straighter. He was sizing us up, skeptical of us, which he had every right to be. “We’re Mr. Anderson’s insurance company. We’re just here to dot ‘I’s’ and cross ‘T’s’,” Dean explains, flashing his badge.
“And they needed to send three of you?” He counters. I giggle, tilting my head slightly, “Would you prefer me leaving?” I ask sweetly. And as predictable as men can be he drags his eyes across my body before shaking his head, “No. No. That won’t be necessary.” I ignore the dirty feeling that washes over me and sticks to my bones like a new layer of skin, it was necessary to do that because now he won’t bother questioning us anymore on that topic. 
“We were just wondering, had the deceased mentioned any unusual recent experiences?” Sam questions, getting back on topic. Reluctantly Ron looks away from me to look at the man who questioned him, “What do you mean, unusual?”
“Well visions, hallucinations” He elaborates. 
“We’re working with local psychologists to broaden our questioning and research,” I explain, trying to clear the confusion from his face, “It’s all very standard.”
“What company did you say you were with?” Ron counters. Maybe he was more on guard than I thought. “All National Mutual” Dean answers smoothly, “Tell me, did he ever mention seeing a truck? A big black truck?”
“What the hell ‘you talking about?” Ron exclaims, “‘You even speaking English?”
Wow, what a lovely guy.
“Son this truck, a big scary monster-looking thing?” Ron's friend suddenly says.
“Yeah actually, I think so” Dean answers. The man hums to himself in thought, please let this interaction be useful. “You’ve heard of something like that?” I ask the man. “I have,” he nods, not bothering to elaborate.
“You have. Where?” Sam pushes.
“Not where,” he finally answers, “When. Back in the ‘60s, there was a string of deaths. Black men. Story goes, they disappeared in a big, nasty, black truck.”
“They ever catch the guy?” I ask. He shrugs, “Never found him. Hell, not even sure they really looked. See there was a time, ‘this town wasn’t too friendly to all its citizens.”
“Thank you” Sam nods.
We walk away, heading back to the Impala. “Well, it seems like history is repeating itself,” I began, “From the lack of investigation and racism down to the–”
“Truck,” Dean says, finishing my sentence. “Keeps coming up doesn’t it?” Sam adds.
“You know, I was thinking. You heard of the Flying Dutchman?” Dean asks.
“Yeah, a ghost ship, infused with the Captian’s evil spirit. It was basically part of him” Sam answers, explaining the lore. Dean nods, “So what if we’re dealing with the same thing? You know, a phantom truck, an extension of some bastard’s ghost, re-enacting past crimes.”
“The victims have been black men” Sam continues the theory. I half-shrug, “I don't know. The town has to have more than a handful of black people, but it only seems to be going after specific people. It’s practically targeting those connected to Cassie and her family. I’m sure there’s some deeper link there.”
“That’s why I think it’s more than that,” Dean says.
“All right. Well, you work that angle, go talk to her,” Sam tells his brother specifically, clearly playing matchmaker. “Yeah, I will,” Dean agrees.
“Oh, and you might also wanna mention that other thing” Sam noted, a playful smile on his lips. Always the meddler. “What other thing?” Dean asks, either genuinely lost or faking it. “The serious, unfinished business?” Sam elaborates. I huff a laugh, “Yeah, seriously Dean it's so painfully obvious. Just talk to the girl.” It pained me to even suggest that, to motivate him in such a way but I want him to be happy, and if that means being with her then so be it.
Dean stops just as we reach the car, going obstinately silent. Sam huffs a laugh this time, “Dean, what is going on between you two?”
“All right, so maybe we were a little more involved than I said,” he finally admits. I give him a pointed look, “Yeah…that was obvious.” 
He huffs, “A lot more. Maybe. And I told her our secret, about what we do. And I shouldn’t have.”
“Ah look man, everybody’s gotta open up to someone sometime,” Sam reasons, being a little too understanding compared to how we were only yesterday. “Yeah I don’t,” Dean argues, “It was stupid to get that close. I mean, look how it ended.”
I smile at him softly, hoping any sadness is concealed far behind my eyes, and I realize Sam is giving him the same look except he’s nearly beaming. “Would you both stop!” he shouts. But we don't because this is a side of Dean we’ve never seen before, and it is beautiful even if it's heartbreaking for me. “Someone blink or something!” he exclaims, throwing his hands up.
“You loved her,” I say softly, the gape in my chest deepening at the verbal declaration. Saying it aloud was so much worse. “Oh God,” he groans, turning to the Impala. “You still do!” I call after him.
“You were in love with her, but you dumped her,” Sam states, connecting the pieces. Dean goes silent, staring at the ground, then carefully glances at his brother before reverting his eyes. “Oh wow. She dumped you.”
I have to stop myself from taking in a sharp breath, there was a lot to this he wasn’t telling us. But why would she break up with him if she still has feelings?
“Get in the car” Dean demands, done being “emotional” and open, “Get in the car!”
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Sam hands me my hot chocolate, but not even the sweet treat or the soft snow falling just outside can lift my mood. It makes me feel a little better but it does not fix my heart. Dean didn’t come back last night and I know it’s because he spent the night at Cassie’s. I’m happy they worked things out and hopefully had a wonderful night but again it does not fix my heart.
I held the cup tighter, welcoming the immense warmth it brought to my frozen hands as we stepped out of the small coffee shop. The air was crisp yet gentle as the light fluffy snowflakes descended onto us, the cold flakes collecting in my hair. A small smile graced my face, maybe it was making me feel better. I like the cold, preferred it even, I was cozy in my thick turtle neck and my favorite fleeced-lined jacket. 
Sam and I walk in comfortable silence side by side, sipping from our cups and basking in the scenery of the unexpected snow. It was early May in Missouri, it really shouldn’t be snowing but I suppose if it could snow here a little in April then early May couldn't be that weird. Plus it was a light snow that likely wouldn't even stick. But the calming scenery is cut in half by an ambulance that speeds past us, sirens blaring. We share a questioning look but ultimately ignore it until two cop cars rush past us heading the same way. That we can’t ignore. With another shared look, we follow after the sirens.
I look out at the macabre scene, the yellow caution tape not having stopped me from investigating thanks to the use of a fake ID. The body had been bagged after countless photos were taken, but the blood of Mayor Todd still stains the streets. It was a gruesome scene, arguably worse than the others in this case his organs squished out like roadkill and, truthfully, that’s what he had become. 
“L/N” Sam calls out from just a few feet behind me. I turned around swiftly, the snow whirling around me, Dean stood next to his brother. He came. 
I walk over to the two boys, watching Dean’s clear expression of shock masked by annoyance, “‘You gonna ask me a bunch of questions too?” he asks. I look at him confused, “...no” I drag out slowly. His face seems to relax slightly, something unrecognizable passing in his eyes, “Good,” he nods. 
“I already know you made up–made out” I add, his face drops, “Anyways, crime scene,” I point behind me.
“Every bone crushed. Internal organs turned to pudding,” Sam explains the case, catching his brother up, “The cops are all stumped, it’s like something ran him over.” The wind picks up again, swirling the snow in its own private storm, the cold will help with the case as it preserves the body longer. “Something like a truck?” Dean asks, gaining his footing in the case.
“Yeah, except of course there’s no tracks” I answer. He nods, rubbing a hand down his jaw and I have to force my eyes away from the movement, “What was the Mayor doing here anyway?”
“He owned the property. Bought it a few weeks ago” Sam says referring to the building site.
“But he’s white, doesn’t fit the pattern,” Dean points out. Sam nods, “Killings didn’t happen up on the road. That doesn’t fit either.”
I shove my hands into my pocket, taking a quick look back at the crime scene before turning back to the boys, “Then it seems like this case is one of revenge.”
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I shuffle through the papers in front of me, glad that I was sent to do research at the town's main library rather than be at the newspaper office with the boys and Cassie. She was probably looking at him all sweetly and being a kind person, and I did not wish to see the loving way they looked at each other. And if avoiding that meant having my nose in dusty boxes of court records then that was okay.
I pull out my phone calling Sam directly instead of Dean, the phone rings a couple of times before he picks up, “Hi” I greet, “I got some info.”
The line goes quiet for a second before I hear his voice, “Alright you're on speaker.”
“Ok, so,” I start, balancing my phone between my ear and my shoulder as I look over the papers, “I have courthouse records here, and according to them Mr and Mrs Mayor bought an abandoned property. The previous owner was the Dorian family who owned it for, like, 150 years.”
“Dorian?” Dean repeats back. “Yes.”
His voice grows quieter but still in range enough for me to hear, “Didn’t you say the Dorian family used to own this paper?” he asks someone else in the room. “Along with everything else around here. Real pillars of the town,” Cassie answers. “Right, right” Dean responds followed by the clicking of keys.
“You got something there?” I ask, readjusting my phone. 
“Think so” Sam mumbles, seemingly focused on whatever was happening over at the office.
“This Cyrus Dorian. He vanished in April of ‘63. The case was investigated but never solved. It was right around the time the string of murders was going on back then,” Dean informs, adding more information to what that man yesterday had told us.
“Well to add to that information, the Dorian place seemed to be in really bad shape when the Mayber bought it,” I add, “He bulldozed the place.”
“Mayor Todd knocked down the Dorian place?” Dean asks, presumably, Cassie. “It was a big deal” she answers, “One of the oldest houses left. He made the front page.” I huff a breath, everything connecting yet leaving so many questions at the same time. “You got a date, Y/N?” Dean calls back.
“Um,” I hum shuffling the papers around and reading over the words quickly, “‘3rd of last month.” The line goes quiet again the only sound ringing back being the sharp noise of fingers on a keyboard, “Mayor Todd bulldozed the Dorian family home on the 3rd,” Dean finally responds, “The first killing was the next day.”
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Pouring the boiled water into the mug I take a quick look back, Dean kneels in front of the shaken-up Cassie rubbing her knee softly and looking at her with pure determination and adoration. I swallow roughly looking back at the mugs in front of me, nearly overspilling and burning myself. 
This was not the time to grieve a love that never happened. Cassie called Dean afraid, having seen the black truck. We were here to help, I was making a soothing herbal tea for her and her mother to calm the nerves. 
Finishing with the mugs I carefully carry them into the sitting room. Sam takes one from me, gently handing it to her mother. I hand the mug to Cassie, her shaky hands accepting and rattling the cup, Dean immediately moves to sit at her side but it does not stop his protectiveness if anything it amplifies it; he practically radiates it. “Maybe you should throw a couple of shots in here,” she says, half joking.
I huff a laugh, “Well while the effects of alcohol do have the capabilities of easing the central nervous system, when the effects wear off your body will be jolted back from its depressive state which would really only make you feel worse, more anxious as well as stressed.”
She gives me a half, almost awkward, smile before taking a sip from her mug. Did I say too much? Why didn’t someone stop me? Someone should’ve just cut me off, especially if I wasn’t helping.
“You didn’t see who was driving the truck,” Sam says suddenly, pulling the awkwardness out of the air. “It seemed to be no one. Everything was moving so fast. And then it was just gone,” she explains, “Why didn’t it kill us?”
“Whoever was controlling the truck wants you afraid first,” Dean answers. This would explain why at least one of the victims had seen it and truthfully thought they were going mad. “Mrs Robinson,” Sam began, “Cassie said that your husband saw the truck before he died.” Mrs Robinson doesn't answer, seemingly lost in her mind as she shakes. “Mom?” Cassie says carefully, worry laced in her voice.
The older Robinson shakes her head nervously, “Oh. Martin was under a lot of stress. You can’t be sure about what he was seeing.”
“Well after tonight I think we can be reasonably sure he was seeing a truck. What happened tonight, you and Cassie are marked. Ok?” Dean snaps, “Your daughter could die. So if you know something now would be a really good time to tell us about it.”
“Dean…” Cassie warns. But her mother's face contorts in emotion, something in her breaking, “Yes. Yes, he said he saw a truck.”
“Did he know who it belonged to?” Sam asks, taking a seat across from the woman. “He thought he did,” she answers cryptically. “Who was that?” Dean pushes. Her eyes get watery and she sinks into herself, “Cyrus. A man named Cyrus.”
My gaze flickers to the boys, we are all thinking the same thing, I look back at her, “By any chance was it Cyrus Dorian?” I ask carefully. Dean pulls out a newspaper from inside his coat, handing it to the woman. She doesn't shake her head or nod only replying with, “Cyrus Dorian died more than 40 years ago.”
“How do you know he died, Mrs Robinson?” Dean asks softly, “The papers said he went missing. How do you know he died?” 
She hesitates, her mouth agape like a fish out of water or in reality that of a person who got caught, “We were all very young,” she says, “I dated Cyrus a while, I was also seeing Martin…in secret of course. Interracial couples didn’t go over too well back then. When I broke it off with Cyrus and when he found out about Martin, I don’t know, he, changed. His hatred. His hatred was frightening.”
“The murder,” Sam voices.
Her voice wobbles, “They were rumors. People of color disappearing into some kind of truck. Nothing ‘ever done,” she swallows shifting in her seat, “Martin and a…Martin and I, we were gonna be, uh, married in that little church near here, but last minute we decided to elope as we didn’t want the attention.” She pushes her short hair out of her face, stressed. “And what became of Cyrus?” I ask.
Endless tears fall down her cheeks, “The day we set for the wedding, was the day someone set fire to the church. There was a children’s choir practicing in there. They all died.” I suppress the gasp that wishes to leave my lips, the room seems to dim with the information. What was meant to be a beautiful day was soiled by the blood of innocents.
“Did the attacks stop after that?” Sam asks softly, careful of her fragile mindset.
A sob escapes from her chest, “No! There was one more. One night that truck came for Martin. Cyrus beat him terribly. But Martin, you see, Martin got loose. And he started hitting Cyrus and he just kept hitting him and hitting him.”
“Why didn’t you call the cops?” Dean pushes. She continues to cry, “This was forty years ago. He called on his friends, Clayton Soames and Jimmy Anderson, and they put Cyrus’ body into the truck and they rolled it into the swamp at the end of his land and all three of them kept that secret all of these years.” 
“And now all three are gone,” Sam acknowledges. This all confirms the theory of a vengeful spirit. “And so is Mayor Todd,” Dean adds, “Now he said that you of all people would know he is not a racist. Why would he say that?”
“He was a good man,” Mrs Robinson answers, “He was a young deputy back then investigating Cyrus’ disappearance. Once he figured out what Martin and the others had done he…he did nothing, because he also knew what Cyrus had done.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cassie asks, her voice hard yet full of emotion. I couldn't imagine what was going on in her head, to find out something like this–“I thought I was protecting them. And now there’s no one left to protect,” her mother reasons.
“Yes, there is” Dean counters, fiercely. His green eyes harden with determination as he looks at Cassie.
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I sit on the cold hood of the Impala, gently kicking my legs back and forth watching Dean pace in front of me. Sam leans against the car next to me, his arms crossed as he too watches his brother, “Ah, my life was so simple. Just school, exams, papers on polycentric cultural norms…”
I look at him with an amused smile, “I have no idea what that last part is but it sounds fun!” That stops Dean in his tracks for just a half of a second, he points at us, “No it doesn’t. I saved him from a boring existence.”
“Yeah, occasionally I miss boring” Sam reasons. I nod enthusiastically, “Honestly, we have not had a normal day in like months. Kinda miss it.”
Dean brushes our light complaining off, “So this killer truck–”
“I miss conversations that didn’t start with ‘this killer truck’” Sam quips with a dramatic sigh. I failed to hold back my laughter, Dean laughs lightly and for a brief moment, things feel how they used to, “Well this Cyrus guy. Evil on a level that infected even his truck. When he died, the swamp became his tomb, and his spirit was dormant for 40 years.”
“So what woke it up?” Sam asks.
“The construction on his house. Or the destruction,” Dean points out. 
“Right. Demolition or remodeling can awaken spirits, make them restless” Sam recalls. His brother hums a ‘yes’, nodding.
“Like that theater in Illinois, ya know?” Sam references, and I in fact had no idea what he was talking about. “And the guy that tore down the family homestead, Harold Todd, is the same guy that kept Cyrus’ murder quiet and unsolved,” Dean adds, bringing it back to the case at hand.
“So now his spirit is awakened and out for blood,” Sam acknowledges. 
“Yeah, I guess. Who knows what ghosts are thinking anyway” Dean shrugs. 
“Wait, does this mean we have to go swimming in that swamp?” I ask. I mean if we had to salt and burn the bones then we would need said bones which are in a swamp, how nice. Dean smiles at me, I know that look. “No” I warn, pointing at him like an animal that did something wrong. “You said it” he rationalizes. 
“Noooo” I whine a pout on my lips, “Do I have to do it alone?”
His wicked smile deepens, “‘Course not, Sammy’s gonna be with you.”
Sam’s shoulders drop, “Man,” he sighs. 
Suddenly a familiar figure approaches, her hands tucked into the back pocket of her jeans. Dean stands up straighter, “Hey.” She smiles sadly, “Hey. She’s asleep. Now what?”
“Well, you should stay put, look after her…and we’ll be back. Don’t leave the house,” Dean explains, looking at her in that way that hurts my heart. But she smiles, any worry melting off her face, “Don’t go getting all authoritative on me. I hate it.”
Dean glances back at us, Sam looks down grinning acting as if neither of us could hear the conversation. He turns back to Cassie mumbling something I can't quite make out but whatever it was must have been good because he slowly leans in to kiss her. I drop my head and gaze at the very interesting ground, trying my best to ignore the sound of their intensifying making out. A pang of jealousy, longing, and pain shoots through my chest. If the ground wanted to just open up and consume me now I wouldn’t complain, I’d even help it and just throw myself in it wouldn’t have to work very hard. Sam clears his throat, I look up but Dean just holds out a finger to wait as he brings Cassie even closer.
I drop my eyes again. 
Loving someone never hurt so bad. Loving him never hurt so bad. 
Was it wrong to love him? Was this always going to be my fate? To see him evermore with other girls, loving them more than he could ever love me. 
“You two comin’ or what?” Dean asks. I look up once more and this time his lips aren’t on Cassie.
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I tug on the chain again, making sure it's secure, my hands getting wet in the process. I wipe my icky hands off on my jeans as I back away, “Alright he’s good,” I call out to Sam who stands feet away from me, closer to the butt of the pickup Dean was driving. He gives a thumbs up to his brother who begins to move the car forward, the pickup moving slowly in the weight of the heavy truck and water pressure.
We had already gotten it up a lot, but it had gotten stuck on the side of the swamp so we had to readjust its hold to get it the rest of the way up. 
The years in the water had diminished it. The old black truck was now more like a rust bucket, remains of the swamp water spilling out from the seams. “All right. A little more…little more,” Sam leads, “All right, stop.” 
The engine shuts off and Dean heads to the Impala, he pulls it open rummaging through the various weapons. “Now I know what she sees in you” Sam declares with a snap of his finger, meaning he finally understood what that look in her eyes meant. “What?” Dean asks.
“Come on man, you can admit it. You’re still in love with her” Sam clarifies. I nod even though the implications hurt, “Plus it’s not like no one else knows. So the only person you’re hiding from is yourself.”
Dean looks up from the trunk, “Uhh, can we focus please.”
I purse my lips, “Yeah…focusing has never really been our strong suit…” A container of salt is pressed into my chest, “Hold that” Dean says swiftly.
His expression hardens, all jokes put to rest as he dishes out items, “Gas” he says first, handing the large container to his brother, “Flashlights,” he lists out next filling my empty hand with one. 
“Ok, let’s get this done,” he quips, closing the trunk.
We trudge back over to the rusty truck, our flashlights leading our way across the grass. Dean places his hand on the handle and I must wonder how he isn’t grossed out by just the feeling of the flaked paint and rotting metal. He glances at us in a silent ‘you ready?’ We give a nod and he opens the door.
A decaying wet corpse falls out the door and onto the soft grass, a small gush of water following its lead. I leap back like a scared cat, clasping a hand to my mouth and nose the decomposition of the body as well as its marinating in swamp water left a putrid smell. One perhaps worse than anything I've ever smelt before which was saying something considering what I’ve hunted. 
“All right let’s get to it,” Dean says. Sam pours the gasoline all over the body, careful not to get it close to us and I jump in with the salt, opening the little latchet to sprinkle the small white crystals over the open-mouthed corpse. The satisfying scratch and flick of a match sounds softly beside me in the quiet night followed by the drop of the matchstick on the body. In mere seconds the remains go up in flames, the warm glow of the fire reflecting on the truck just beside it. I hoped no one would come looking over here with the whirl of smoke twirling above us, the heat powerful enough for me to take another step back. 
“Think that’ll do it?” Sam voices, staring down at the burning corpse. But his question is followed by the revving of an engine and two blinding lights pointed at us. Without looking in the direction I knew it was the ghost truck. “I guess not,” Dean quips.
 “So burning the body had no effect on that thing?” the younger Winchester asks. “Sure it did. Now it’s really pissed,” Dean responds. I glare at him, “I don't know if this is the time for cool jokes.”
“But Cyrus’ ghost is gone, right Dean?” Sam asks, a hint of panic in his voice as the tuck stares us down. But his brother doesn't answer right away, instead, he starts to walk away, “Apparently not the part that’s fused with the truck.”
 I go on my tip toes trying to peak into the truck, maybe we missed something like a severed piece of him that didn’t spill out but before I can vocalize this Sam is calling out to his brother, “Where are you going?” I turn around, catching up to the boys, “Goin’ for a little ride,” Dean answers as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “What?!” Sam and I exclaim in unison, “That’s a horrible idea!” I add. But he ignores our concern, “Gonna lead that thing away. That busted piece of crap, you gotta burn it.”
“How the hell are we supposed to burn a truck, Dean?” Sam asks, voice raising in volume. But being the determined man he is he shrugs, “I don’t know. Figure something out.” He rounds the car, opening the driver's door, “At least let one of us come with you, this is horribly dangerous,” I try to reason.
His eyes move up and down my face, before he settles on my eyes once more, “‘Exactly why you’re not comin’ with.” Before I can come up with a retort on how stubborn he is he settles himself into the car, closing the door behind him. I look to Sam for any support on this but he just stares at the car muttering, “Figure some–something–”
I rack my brain for ideas because Dean wasn’t going to listen and would rather be all hot and stubborn than be reasonable, “An explosion?” I suggest. Sam shakes his head, “No, that wouldn’t work. Parts would go everywhere and everything has to burn.”
I huff, frustrated, “I hate when you’re right.” 
Dean reverses the Impala and takes off, the engine revering. As predictable as possible the ghost truck roars after him. I try to rack my brain for more ideas, even if we could suddenly light a truck on fire it would take too long for it to burn completely, “Sam, please tell me you got some idea rolling around in there.” He doesn't answer, lost in concentration with his bottom lip between his teeth. 
My phone suddenly rings in my pocket, I pull it out swiftly seeing Dean’s name glowing. I flip it open bringing it to my ear, “You okay?” I say immediately. “Uh…yeah,” He says but I remain not convinced, “what are we doing?” 
I look at Sam, panicking slightly, “Um, Sam what are we doing?”
He pulls out his phone, “You gotta give me a minute.” He presses his phone to his ear, “He says to give him a minute, I think he’s callin’ someone.”
“I don’t have a minute!” He half yells. “Dude, I don't know!” I panic, “Just…just don’t die, okay?”
“Trying here sweetheart.” I look back at Sam who has stepped away, I give him a hand motion of ‘please hurry up.’ He nods, coming closer to feed me info, “Ask him where he is.” I pull my phone away from my ear putting him on speaker instead, “Okay, Dean where the hell are you?”
“In the middle of nowhere with a killer truck on my ass!” he exclaims, “It’s like it knows I put the torch to Cyrus.”
“Listen to me, this is important” Sam orders, calmly, “I have to know exactly where you are.” Seemingly taking his advice he goes quiet for a beat, “Decatur Road, about two miles off the highway.”
“Ok. Headed East?” Sam follows up.
“Yes!”
A rattle and a bang followed by skitting noise sounds from the phone followed by cursing, “You son of a bitch!” 
“Sam!” I yell, begging him to hurry up. “Ok, uhhh, turn right! Up ahead, turn right.” Again the line falls silent, “You make the turn?” Sam questions softly. My heart beats faster with each silent moment that passes. “Yeah, I made the turn!” Dean yells, “You need to move this thing along a little faster.”
“All right, you see a road up ahead?” Sam asks.
“No!... Wait. No, yes, I see it.”
“Ok turn left.”
“Wha..?” Dean half says before he goes quiet again the only sound coming from the line being more screeching and shuffled movement. “All right, now what? He finally responds. 
“You need to go seven-tenths of a mile and then stop,” Sam explains. I looked at him strangely, noticing he wasn’t on the phone anymore, but what the hell was he talking about? “Stop?” Dean voices.
“Exactly seven-tenths Dean” Sam repeats. 
“God, I hope you know what you’re talking about,” I tell the man beside me. “Me too” he mumbles over the sound of his brother repeating the words ‘seven-tenths.’ I look at him my mouth agape, “You wha–” 
“Dean, you still there?” He cuts me off, focusing on his brother again. “Yeah,” Dean responds.
“What’s happening over there?” I ask, not knowing was killing me. “It’s just staring at me,” he answers carefully, “what do I do?”
“Just what you’re doing, bringing it to you,” Sam replies.
“Wha–” Dean began before cutting himself off, the line going quiet for the umpteenth time, “Come on. Come on,” he mumbled quietly but just loud enough for the phone to pick it up. My heart thumps in my chest, anticipation and fear running through my veins as well as something else from those two stupid words–something had to be wrong with me to find that hot now of all times.
The line is silent, for one beat, then another, then another…I grip my phone tighter, “Dean? Dean, are you there? ‘You okay?”
“Where’d it go?” he responds with a mix of shock and confusion. “Dean, you’re where the church was,” Sam explains. “What church!” he freaks.
“The place Cyrus burned down. Murdered all those kids,” Sam clarifies. 
“There’s not a whole lot left,” Dean responds.
“Church ground is hallowed ground, whether the church is still there or not. Evil spirits cross over hallowed ground, and sometimes they’re destroyed, so I figured, maybe, that would get rid of it,” Sam explains. I hit his arm, “That was a hunch?!”
Dean adds in with the lecturing, “Maybe? Maybe!! What if you were wrong?!”
“Huh,” Sam hums, “Honestly, that thought hadn’t occurred to me.”
I glare at him sharply, hitting his arm again as I say, “You’re too sassy for your own good.” He laughs, a boyish grin on his face.
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I wait in the back, Sam in the driver seat for Dean to say his goodbyes. I liked the back seat, more now than ever because being in the front would mean being able to see out the side mirror and watch Dean kiss the woman he loves and say a goodbye I was sure he didn’t want. 
Life was being really unfair and uncool.
I bury my nose in my new book, it would be better to just escape into this world than have to deal with my feelings here in the real world. My feelings in the real world were not fun, they were depressing and hurt…a lot. But no amount of ink on paper formed into beautifully crafted words could fill the gaping hole in my heart, still, I tried as there was nothing else to do.
What is worse is knowing there will never be a chance for me to be loved by him, at least not in the way I do, because there will always be a place in his heart for her. He’ll think of her all the time, dream about her, and perhaps see her in the breeze. His heart belongs to her, and possibly always has.
I needed to accept that. The sooner I did the quicker the pain would go away. I couldn't go on believing I had a chance I needed to huff the flame out now. 
No more hope. No more love. We’re friends, always have been, and always will be. That will have to be enough. I couldn’t love him anymore, not if it meant feeling this much pain. I wouldn’t accept his touches anymore for they gave me more hope than I’d like to admit.
No. I was wrong.
Worse of all is knowing that I can’t just stop loving him. Let it be the Gods' fault or the stars or whatever it is I’m meant to believe in but my heart has long been his and always will be. I could never love someone the way I love him, I wasn’t capable of that. Let it be that our love was written in the star's constellations that it was undecided by me or him for my love had to transcend the binds of that nonsense.
I loved him and he did not love me and maybe it was that which I had to accept because to stop loving him would mean to stop my heart from beating. Though even then I suspect not even the afterlife could keep me from my eternal love. And maybe that was pathetic or stupid, especially since he did not care for me in such a way, but it was the truth and no one has ever claimed truth to be a beautiful thing.
I’m brought back to reality with a bump. When did we leave and start driving? I look out the window, we had already made it to the highway…I look at the boys, but both seem fine. Ok then.
“I like her,” Sam says, and suddenly I wish to be lost back in the state I was in moments ago. I would love not to hear or be a part of this conversation. “Yeah,” Dean replies, seemingly just to get his brother to stop.
“You meet someone like her, doesn’t it make you wonder if it’s worth it? Putting everything else on hold, doing what we do?” Sam asks innocently perhaps trying to get him to understand what he had felt with his girlfriend. But something flickers in his face and suddenly he’s making eye contact with me in the rearview mirror, his eyes written in apology as if it just hit him now what all of this was doing to me. It was that puppy dog look. 
I smile sadly at him, giving him a curt nod in a silent ‘it’s okay.’ His gaze flickers back to the road.
Dean leans forward pulling sunglasses from the glove box, he puts them on carefully ignoring his brothers' initial question, “Why don’t you wake me up when it’s my turn to drive?” He slouches down in his seat with a sigh. I shake my head, roll my eyes, and go back to my book.
We were leaving Missouri and all would be well, or as well as they could be.
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justinspoliticalcorner · 4 months ago
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Edward Helmore at The Guardian:
With 78-year-old Donald Trump now certain to face a Democratic candidate younger than he is, the Republican could have the tables turned on him over the questions of age and mental agility that he often sidestepped while Joe Biden was his opponent. The age gap between Trump and any of his likely Democrat opponents – Kamala Harris, 59; Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, 52; Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, 51 – could make him the sole focus of voters’ desire for a generational handover of power. And with Biden’s often stumbling public appearances – and especially his disastrous debate – now a thing of the past, there is likely to be a fresh focus on Trump’s mental acuity and his frequently rambling, confused campaign speeches.
Last month, for example, Trump got the name of his own doctor wrong. Previously he has made high-profile campaign trail gaffes, in which he seemed to think Barack Obama was still president and mistook his arch Republican rival Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi. Nearly 60% of US voters said last month that Biden should “definitely” or “probably” be replaced, while Trump’s favorability rating had risen to 40% since his hush-money conviction and the attempt on his life eight days ago. Harris’s favorability sits at around 39%. Biden’s departure from the ticket upends several aspects of Republican’s calculations, including that Trump the felon will now possibly have to debate Harris the former prosecutor in September – if she receives the nomination. The vice-president proved her debating skills in 2019 when she delivered a highly personal attack on Biden on the issue of race that he later described as “hurtful” and chilled relations between the Biden-Harris camps before she was named vice-president.
Remember when GOP Presidential candidate Nikki Haley said this quote? "The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election."
With Joe Biden ending his re-election bid and passing the torch to the younger Kamala Harris, the age and cognitive decline question disadvantage will fall on Donald Trump’s lap.
See Also:
Daily Kos: Now there's only one old guy in this election: Donald Trump
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prominentgames · 7 months ago
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katsu28 · 2 years ago
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return to sender
pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x reader
summary: you’ve been getting your neighbor’s mail for the past few months and you were okay with it, but now came a time to finally talk to him about it 
warnings: light swearing, neighbors meet cute, bradley's biceps bc god damn they deserve a warning of their own (2.5k)
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The first time you got someone else’s mail, you didn’t think anything of it. Bradley Bradshaw, it said, 1987 Pennsylvania Court. That was a few doors down from your place, and they were just letters, you could just drop them off in his mailbox the next time you went out. No big deal, it was just one time. 
Then one time became twice, which eventually turned into a third, fourth, fifth time, and so on. Letters soon became bigger envelopes, which didn’t actually fit into his mail slot. 
So you started dropping them on his doorstep, leaving them for him to find the next time he left the house. Knocking on his door and giving him his mail seemed like it would be too much of an endeavor for your poor social skills, because you’d seen Bradley Bradshaw around from afar sometimes, but you’d never said a word to him. No, he was big and tall and scary looking, and as much as you hated to pass judgment on people you didn’t actually know, probably a jerk. 
So yeah, sticking them in his mailbox, leaving them at his door and hightailing it out of there was the best option for everyone. It meant you didn’t have to confront him and tell him that his mail was being sent to the wrong apartment, and he didn’t have to waste his time talking to you. Win win for both of you. 
That all went out the window today, when you opened your door to see the biggest box you’d ever laid eyes on sitting on your welcome mat, the mailing address on the top flap spelling out none other than motherfucking Bradley Bradshaw in large, bold letters. Upon trying to lift it, you very quickly found that you couldn’t even get it to budge more than an inch. 
Looks like you were going to have to talk to Bradley after all. 
After giving yourself a pep talk (and hyping yourself up and going through all the things that could possibly go wrong) you marched your way over to his place, practicing what you were going to say to him the whole way. 
You exhaled one last sharp breath through your mouth, licking your lips nervously before knocking on his door, once, twice, a third time. Faint footsteps came from inside, the clicking of the lock a few seconds after, then the door swung open. 
Nothing could’ve prepared you for the person standing in front of you. It was Bradley, of course, but up close for the first time. For once, you could see him in his entirety, and holy fuck was he hot. Clad in a plain t-shirt and a pair of shorts, he looked unfairly good—a far cry from you in your stretched out leggings and frayed sweatshirt from fucking college. He was tall and broad and tan and about a dozen other words you couldn’t even think of right now, not when all you could do was barely control your reaction to seeing him. You wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a ‘loading, please wait’ signal flashing above your head. 
His gaze landed on you hovering awkwardly on his doorstep, offering you a polite smile. “Hi, can I help you with something?” 
“Hi. I live a few doors down from here and I think there’s been some sort of mistake with the post office, because I’ve been getting your mail for the past few months.” You blurted, pressing your lips together right after the words left your mouth. Way to ease into it, loser! 
Bradley’s eyebrow’s furrowed, mouth turning down into a confused sort of frown. “Uh…no, I don’t think so? My mail’s been getting here just fine everyday.” 
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been dropping it off in your mailbox every time I get it.”  
His eyes widened, mouth dropping open the tiniest bit in…was that shock? Surprise? Possibly guilt? Maybe a mixture of all three. “Shit, really?” You nodded. “Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t even—I didn’t notice.” 
Honestly, you were expecting him to be a dick about it, but here he was, apologizing for something that he couldn’t have even known was happening all this time. It was throwing you for a loop, because you’d built him up in your head to be kinda mean and scary, but he was actually really nice. 
“Um. It’s—it’s okay. Just thought I should let you know.” 
“I guess I should be thanking you then.” He smiled warmly, and you had to fight the urge to turn tail and run. Bradley Bradshaw had the kind of smile that had the power to throw your whole plan out the window. 
See, you’d banked this entire interaction on him being an asshole. You’d tell him to come get his package, he’d do it, somehow fix the whole mail delivery problem, and then you’d never have to talk to him again. Problems solved, no reason for you to have to take this any further. 
Except he wasn’t an asshole at all, which made you feel like an asshole. 
“I’m Bradley, by the way,” He offered, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. “Which you already knew, ‘cause you’ve been getting my mail for months. I never got your name though?” 
“Y/N.” You replied, shifting your weight to your other foot. He repeated it, bobbing his head in acknowledgment. Hearing your name come off his lips was…well, the only way you could describe it was weird. It sounded somehow better than you’d heard it come out of anyone else’s mouth. “Right, so that’s not actually what I came over here for. Well, it was to tell you about the mail thing, but also something else. You’ve got a giant package.” Your face burned lava hot as you realized what you said and what it sounded like you were saying (two very different things, by the way). 
Bradley coughed abruptly, choking on his own breath at your words. He pounded on his chest a few times to recover before speaking. “I’m sorry?” 
“Your mail—a really big box. Sent to my apartment. Again!” You exclaimed, attempting to salvage your dignity and this downhill spiraling conversation. You could see Bradley was trying to keep his composure so as to not make you feel any more mortified than he could clearly see you were, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. He’d brought up a hand to rub at his mustache, effectively covering most of his mouth, but the beginnings of a smirk curled the edges of it, his eyes glinting in barely contained amusement at your blunder. “There’s a giant box that belongs to you on my doorstep and I can’t move it, so can you just…” 
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll come grab it.” He nodded quickly, grabbing his keys and stepping outside. He shut the door behind him, gesturing for you to go first. “Lead the way.” 
You started the walk back to your place in dead silence, keeping your eyes trained on the sidewalk so you wouldn’t have to say anything to Bradley. You’d rather stew in your own humiliation and impending misery than initiate another conversation. Or think about how attractive he was, but that was besides the point. Totally, completely irrelevant. 
It was going pretty well, but then, he spoke. “So, when did you move into your place? I can’t say that I’ve seen you around here much.” 
He was trying to make small talk, you could tell. Probably to avoid having to dwell on the very awkward situation from moments prior. And as much as you didn’t want to make any more of a fool out of yourself than you already had, it would’ve been rude not to answer. 
“Been here a few years. I keep to myself mostly though.” Mainly to avoid situations like this. 
“Ah yeah, I’m usually not here too often. My job takes me a lot of different places, so I’m typically gone for months at a time.” He replied casually, shoving his hands into his pockets. 
“Long business trips?” 
“Sorta. I’m Navy. Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw, naval aviator—at your service.” Navy, interesting. Now you were wondering how those broad shoulders fit into a jet. 
“So you zoom around in the skies for a living?” 
“It’s a little more than that, but yeah, pretty much,” He snorted, said broad shoulders shaking with laughter. Damnit, even his laugh was endearing. It was getting harder and harder for you to justify making this thing with Bradley a one off. “Maybe I could take you up in my jet one day, give you a taste of what flying free feels like.” 
Was he��flirting with you right now? 
You finally looked at him, raising a curious eyebrow. “Really?” 
“Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s extremely against the rules. I can’t do that, I don’t—I don’t know why I said that.” Bradley admitted, offering you a rather embarrassed smile. 
You didn’t know how to respond to that, but good thing you’d arrived back at your place right at that minute, the huge box on your doormat instantly distracting him. 
“No way! I’ve been waiting for this thing for ages!” He exclaimed, squatting down to run his hand along the cardboard. He turned to you, eyes alight with pure joy. “You wanna know what it is?” 
You didn’t feel like you really needed to know, but from the way Bradley was beaming at you, you found yourself actually growing a little interested. “What is it?” 
“This fancy new coffee machine one of my buddies has been raving about. Apparently it’s supposed to brew like, the best coffee ever. I really think he might be exaggerating a bit, but Hangman’s fairly reliable when it comes to cool things.” 
Your brow raised in curiosity. “Hangman?” 
“His callsign. Mine’s Rooster.” Weird, but somehow it seemed very fitting. 
Bradley hefted the box into his arms with ease, resting it on a raised knee as he attempted to get his arms around it. His biceps bulged with the effort, and you had to make a conscious effort to avert your gaze. God, those things had to be bigger than your head. 
“Thank you again for dropping off my mail all this time, you really didn’t have to.” He said earnestly, fighting another smirk. Oh, he definitely caught you looking.
“I didn’t mind.” You replied quickly, feeling your face grow warm again. “Thought they might be important things. Naval aviator paperwork, maybe.” 
“Right. Well, I’ll let you get on with your day,” Bradley chuckled. He shifted the box a little higher up in his arms, and you looked anywhere else to stop your eyes slipping to his flexing biceps yet again. “But hey, if you ever wanted to chat or hang out or something since we’re neighbors, feel free to swing by. We could try out this coffee machine, see if it’s worth the fortune I spent on it.” 
You hesitated in your response. You knew it wasn’t anything serious, just some coffee between two neighbors, but the weight of it hung heavy in the air. Did you really want to make this more than a one time thing? 
Bradley was really goddamn nice, and as pathetic as it might’ve sounded, just that was enough to make your answer lean towards yes. But he didn’t need to know that yet. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to pressure you for a response right this very minute, so you just nodded. 
“I’ll keep that in mind. It was nice to meet you, Rooster.” You were slightly teasing him about his callsign, but it didn’t look like he minded one bit. One side of his mouth lifted into a smile, dimples on full display. 
“Call me Bradley,” He insisted, brown eyes not unlike the coffee he was offering up boring into yours. “Please.” 
“Okay. Bradley.” He looked pleased at that. “See you around, I guess.” 
“I sure hope so.” 
-------
It was weird how frequently you did start to see Bradley around after that. You’d stopped getting his mail, but sometimes you’d catch a glimpse of him through your window on one of his daily runs, and a lot of the time you somehow left the house or came home at the same time, which resulted in more conversations with each other. 
He’d always go out of his way to say hi or good morning to you when he spotted you, even if you had your head down or your earbuds in, and one time he even scared the living shit out of you by tapping your shoulder when you were looking for your car keys in your bag. Turns out you’d somehow dropped them near his car (which you didn’t even know was his car), and he was on his way out too when he spotted them. 
Things like this happened so often, you began to get used to Bradley. Talking to him became easier, less nerve wracking. It got to a point where you even started to look forward to seeing him out and about, because your interactions always ended up leaving you in a better mood. He was funny, charismatic as hell, and definitely easy on the eyes, and as much as you were afraid to admit it at first, you started to like him a little more than you knew you should’ve. Part of you thought that he might like you too, but you just weren’t sure. 
Yeah, he was a little flirty with you, but you just chalked that up to it being part of his personality. No way he was actually serious about it. That was just who Bradley Bradshaw was. 
Or so you thought.
The answer to your wonders came in the form of a stack of your mail in your mailbox one day a few weeks after the whole giant package fiasco. There was a sticky note attached to the top one, a message scrawled across the paper in small, messy letters. 
These were mixed in with my mail today. My my, how the tables have turned. Here’s my number in case the post office decides to make this a new thing. - Bradley 
You had to hand it to him—Bradley sure knew how to make his mark. You smiled to yourself, phone in hand, fingers entering his number and tapping out a message before you could even take a second to dwell on it. 
y/n: that offer for coffee still on the table by any chance? 
You set it face down on the kitchen counter the moment after you pressed send, walking away from it like that would quell your nerves as you waited for Bradley’s response. But really, what was the likelihood that he was going to see your message in the next—
Ding.
It was pathetic how fast you bolted back to the kitchen to snatch up your phone. 
Bradley: Absolutely. Tomorrow at noon sound okay?
y/n: sounds perfect
Unbeknownst to you, Bradley had also been waiting anxiously for your text, digging his phone out of his pocket the second he felt it buzz, hoping his not-so-subtle way of slipping you his number wasn't too forward of him. He couldn’t help the stupid grin that stretched his lips as his eyes read your text over and over again. It would be perfect. 
Now if he could only figure out how to actually work the goddamn coffee machine, it would be even better. 
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audiodramahub · 2 months ago
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Audiodrama Hub Podfest is Back!
November 2nd! The Riverside Club, High Wycombe (UK not Pennsylvania)! This year we have a focus on sound design and production - featuring:
Big Finish Head Dude and Emperor of the Daleks NICHOLAS BRIGGS as Keynote speaker
Sound Design and Fundraising Panels and Workshops
Voice Acting Workshop with Sarah Golding and Karim Kronfli
Speed Dating Networking
Evening live shows! (Pitch form below)
IF YOU ARE IN THE UK (and can get to High Wycombe)!
Tickets can be found here;
Not a podcaster and just want to see some audiodramas live? Evening only tickets are available
Are a podcaster and want to do a live show? Pitch form is here:
IF YOU CANNOT GET TO HIGH WYCOMBE!
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whencyclopedia · 2 months ago
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Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was an American printer, writer, scientist, inventor, and diplomat, often regarded as a Founding Father of the United States. He rose to prominence as editor of The Pennsylvania Gazette and author of Poor Richard's Almanack before winning scientific renown for experiments with electricity. He also played a major role in the American Revolution (1765-1789).
Apprenticeship in Boston
Benjamin Franklin was born on 17 January 1706, in the house his parents leased on Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts. He was, as noted in his autobiography, the "youngest Son of the youngest Son for five Generations back" (46). His father, Josiah Franklin, had emigrated to Boston partially because his older brothers received all the family inheritance in England. Josiah was a well-respected chandler with 17 children across two marriages; Ben was his tenth son and fifteenth child, born to his second wife, Abiah Folger. Ben learned to read at an early age and his father sent him to Boston Latin School, with the intention that he one day join the clergy. But after two years, Josiah was forced to pull Ben out of school due to lack of money. Instead, Josiah arranged for twelve-year-old Ben to be apprenticed to his elder brother James, a printer.
Ben quickly showed an aptitude for the printing trade and, in his free time, read voraciously and refined his writing skills. In 1721, James Franklin founded The New-England Courant, only the third newspaper to appear in Boston. When James invited readers to contribute to the paper, 16-year-old Ben took the opportunity. In 1722, he penned 14 satirical essays under the pseudonym 'Silence Dogood,' presented as a middle-aged widow. As Dogood, Franklin satirized Massachusetts society: he mocked the haughtiness of Harvard College students, questioned the purpose of women's hoop petticoats, and suggested changes to funeral eulogies. Dogood's irreverence soon made her essays the talk of the town, and Franklin listened with pleasure as James and his friends tried to guess the writer's identity. When James was briefly arrested for publishing material critical of the colonial governor, Ben took over the paper, using Dogood to advocate for free speech.
Young Ben Franklin at the Printing Press
Charles E. Mills (Public Domain)
James was released from jail a month later on the condition that he not print or publish work in The New-England Courant. To circumvent this, he publicly stepped aside as publisher and let Ben run the paper, although James intended to keep managing things behind the scenes. To support the ruse, James publicly released Ben from the terms of his apprenticeship, although he had him sign a secret agreement in which he promised to fulfill the terms of his original indenture. Subsequently, the brothers often quarreled over the direction of the paper, and James became jealous upon discovering Ben was the author behind Silence Dogood, while Ben believed himself to be James' intellectual superior. In 1723, Ben left home and fled to New York City; although this broke the terms of the secret agreement, he was confident that James would not go to the authorities for fear of revealing his own duplicity. Franklin briefly stayed in New York but, after failing to find work, he moved on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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ausetkmt · 1 year ago
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On this day in 1838, Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom and found his calling as a leading voice in the abolitionist movement. Douglass escaped slavery by boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland.
He was dressed in a sailor's uniform, provided to him by Anna Murray, (he married her 12 days later, she was a free Black woman in Baltimore) she also gave him part of her savings to cover his travel costs, and carried identification papers which he had obtained from a free black seaman. He crossed the Susquehanna River by ferry at Havre de Grace, then continued by train to Wilmington, Delaware.
From there he went by steamboat to "Quaker City" (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and continued to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York; the whole journey took less than 24 hours. Frederick Douglass later wrote of his arrival in New York: "I have often been asked, how I felt when first I found myself on free soil. And my readers may share the same curiosity. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer.
A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath, and the 'quick round of blood,' I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe.
In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: 'I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions.' Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil."
Frederick Douglass first tried to escape from Freeland, who had hired him out from his owner Colonel Lloyd, but was unsuccessful. In 1836, he tried to escape from his new owner Covey, but failed again. In 1837, Douglass met and fell in love with Anna Murray, her freedom strengthened his belief in the possibility of his own.
Once he had arrived, he sent for Murray to follow him to New York; she arrived with the necessary basics for them to set up home. They were married on September 15, 1838, by a black Presbyterian minister eleven days after his arrival in New York.
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